July 10, Pozirk. The UAV that flew into Lithuania from Belarus today is a Gerbera drone, Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė has said. The Gerbera is a foam-built UAV designed to imitate Iranian-made Shahed-136s.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas and Seimas Speaker Saulius Skvernelis spent some time in shelters today after a drone crossed from Belarus into Lithuania and fell at around 11:30 a.m. approximately one kilometer from the border, LRT reported.
These drones can have different uses, and Lithuanians are examining for what purpose this one was utilized, the defense minister said, as quoted by LRT. Vilnius has no evidence to prove that it was intentionally deployed, she said.
Initially, security services feared it was a Shahed attack drone, a type of unmanned aerial vehicles Russia uses against Ukraine. However, border guards said it was a UAV made of plywood and foam plastic without payload.
In peacetime, foreign drones are not shot down, Lithuanian Army Major Gintautas Ciunis told reporters in Vilnius.
According to him, the drone did not pose any threat; it was in Lithuania for about three minutes and fell down on its own.
The head of the Kena border outpost, Marius Barkauskas, reported that border guards noticed the object at an altitude of about 100 meters.
“The speed was not very fast, around 50–60 kilometers per hour, because it was already descending, falling and flipping over. We found it lying upside down. Smugglers often used something like it to smuggle goods,” he said.
