As 15min reported last night, shortly after midnight, yellow warnings about a possible air threat reached some residents of Lithuania. A little later, they were canceled and it was announced that NATO fighters shot down a drone in the Kaišiadorys district, near the village of Pratkūnai, close to the Kruonis HPP.
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Follow all information about the drone shot down in Lithuania here – Drone shot down in Lithuania: could have had an explosive device, destroyed far from home.
Arūnas Kumpis, a volunteer who served in Ukraine and a drone expert, told LRT radio that such incidents will only increase.
“The only question is what we will do when dozens of them fly in per day, whether those fighters will be able to shoot them down and how much it will cost.
That’s my forecast, so far these are just random drones flying in, but the time will come when they will no longer be random, but deliberately launched,” said A. Kumpis.
In the LRT TV show “Good Morning, Lithuania,” he also said that, in his opinion, it was an “attack drone, long-range.”
“Whose it was and what it carried will probably be determined from the wreckage. There’s not much more to say here,” said A. Kumpis.
According to him, it is hardly possible to determine who the drone belonged to from the wreckage, because drones can now be assembled anywhere and “imitate anything.”
“But from the wreckage, the exact model can be identified. But that is a matter for investigation.
We clearly remember from the case in Germany, Leipzig, that DNA found on the drone was linked to Lithuania. Perhaps investigators can find such things on the wreckage of this drone as well, I do not rule it out. But for now, that would be speculation.
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But identifying the exact model is not a problem. If the wreckage is shown, it is already possible to determine what kind of drone it is,” said A. Kumpis.
He also emphasized that from the wreckage it will be possible to say whether the drone really had explosives.
“Our main goal is to detect, find out what kind of flying object it is and neutralize it. And whether there is a foreign flag or not… I mean – if Russia wants to carry out some provocations, it has more than one or two methods in its toolbox.
Especially since we need to think about what we will do when more than one drone flies in.
Because now the biggest threat, in my opinion, is that the joy over the successful shooting down of a drone will cloud common sense and we will no longer think about what will happen when several dozen of those drones arrive at once?
And the question is whether we will be able to fight those threats with those means? Because what does it mean when a drone costing tens of thousands of euros is shot down with an “Air-to-air” missile costing nearly a million. It means that missile can no longer be used against targets worthy of that missile, i.e., against expensive targets, aircraft or cruise missiles.
We should think about that. Of course, when you don’t have air defense means that correspond to the reality of today’s war, you shoot at those cheap drones with everything you have. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had “Patriot” missiles, that those missiles would be used as in the Middle East. But we know how that ends: they run out very quickly when they start shooting at Iranian shaheds,” said A. Kumpis.
He also noted that he evaluates the events of Tuesday night positively, but the whole context should be considered – in recent days this is the third incident, so “the third time didn’t lie.” A. Kumpis recalled how residents of the Varėna district heard a drone on Sunday night, but there was no reaction. The danger was announced during the day when, as it later turned out, a flock of birds was recorded.
And the third time “worked.” He called it speculation, but is worried about what would happen if there were many drones.
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