Ready to evacuate, but ‘won’t surrender’ if attacked – Lithuania’s PM

Lithuania's prime minister has told the BBC that his country has drawn up evacuation plans in response to threats from Russia, while insisting Lithuania would fight rather than surrender if attacked, Tabby Wilson reports for the broadcaster.

Mindaugas Sinkevičius told Newsnight that Lithuanians feel constantly threatened by Russia, partly because of repeated drone incursions into national airspace, and that the country was preparing for “a variety of scenarios”, not all of which were being discussed publicly – citing, as one example, plans to evacuate elderly residents from cities smoothly and avoid traffic congestion.

He said Lithuania faced concrete threats that, while not daily, were a genuine and lived reality, and called for a shift in the UK's own mindset on defence, while acknowledging that Lithuania sat closer to the border and closer to the threat than Britain does.

Lithuania, a NATO member, shares a land border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

The comments come a week after NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace; Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said it had come from the direction of Belarus, a key Russian ally, though its origin has not been confirmed and Moscow has not commented.

UK defence secretary Wes Streeting credited the “swift and professional actions” of Lithuanian and Italian forces in downing the drone, and said NATO stood united in defence of every inch of alliance territory.

Drone incursions have become increasingly common across Europe since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Residents of Vilnius were forced into shelters in May after a drone alert briefly grounded flights and rail travel, and NATO jets have scrambled repeatedly this year to intercept stray Ukrainian drones drifting into Estonia and Latvia, which Ukraine has blamed on Russian electronic-warfare interference. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia joined NATO in 2004, binding them to the alliance's Article 5 mutual-defence guarantee.