Lithuanian president says military should report airspace violations, not political leaders

Lithuania’s military—not the country’s political leadership—should be responsible for publicly reporting airspace violations by drones, President Gitanas Nausėda said Friday, according to public broadcaster LRT.

“I don’t understand why state leaders should announce every single drone, because the military has the most up-to-date information and should be the ones to do it,” Nausėda told LNK news. He argued that if 15 drones entered Lithuanian airspace in a day, it would be impractical for leaders to comment on each incident, calling such an approach “absurd.”

The remarks follow a drone alert in Utena district on Thursday, where residents were warned of a potential threat. Nausėda had previously declined to comment on a separate drone incident detected by radar over a larger area of Lithuania on Wednesday, though he later noted on social media that two drones may have violated the country’s airspace.

Addressing criticism of schools that moved students to stadiums or ended exams prematurely during the alert, Nausėda called the decisions “examples of how *not* to act.” He urged local authorities to send a clear signal that such responses would not be tolerated in the future.

“If something irreversible happened because of such reckless behavior, there would be criminal liability for those who made the decisions—or those who failed to act,” he warned, emphasizing that the situation was “not a joke.”

Asked whether the state appeared powerless to protect its citizens, Nausėda expressed confidence in NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, which he said had successfully managed risks without endangering lives. However, he acknowledged that Lithuania was not in a “business as usual” situation.

“This is a period of heightened risk that we must navigate properly—mitigating threats and minimizing dangers,” he said.

Nausėda also accused Russia of seeking to “frighten and divide Europe” by pressuring Baltic states over airspace restrictions linked to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian territory. He suggested the Kremlin’s rhetoric was partly aimed at consolidating domestic support as the war’s impact deepened inside Russia.

“Russians are increasingly feeling that the war has come to their doorstep,” he said. “The regime needs to rally a crumbling society.”