Incident summary – 10 July 2025
At 11:30 a.m. on 10 July 2025 Lithuanian radars picked up a low-flying object that crossed the border from Belarus and crashed about 1 km inside Lithuania, near the former Šumskas checkpoint .
The craft was a Russian “Gerbera” decoy-drone—a plywood-and-foam imitation of Iran’s Shahed-136 kamikaze UAV—used to deceive or exhaust air-defence systems .
Lithuanian authorities initially mistook it for a real Shahed-type strike drone, prompting NATO Baltic Air Policing jets (Italian Eurofighters and French Rafales already stationed at Šiauliai) to be placed on heightened readiness .
No NATO fighters were ultimately scrambled; the drone simply fell to the ground and was recovered .
Vilnius later confirmed the device carried no explosives, but the incursion triggered emergency procedures that briefly moved Prime Minister Paluckas and Parliament Speaker Skvernelis to shelters .
The episode underlined Lithuania’s request—made jointly with Poland and Romania—for stronger NATO air-defence assets on the eastern flank .
