Lithuania to create fire teams to protect strategic facilities, drawing on Ukraine’s experience
Special fire teams will begin operating in Lithuania, tasked with protecting strategic facilities from balloons, which have recently been increasingly flying into the country’s airspace from Belarus. This is reported by Delfi.
“We are developing this concept, and I think that next year we will have, perhaps not exactly the ones we need, but we will have these fire teams with appropriate kinetic means”, — explained the head of the Public Security Service (PSS) Viktoras Grabauskas.
He noted that the PSS, together with other agencies, is currently working on creating this system, focusing on the Ukrainian experience of organizing similar units. Commenting on the situation with the balloons, Grabauskas clarified that the employees of the Public Security Service, who guard strategic objects, currently have “some means to neutralize them”, but the effectiveness of such means depends on the flight altitude.
“If the probes are directed specifically at our object, then, of course, the speed is lower there, the altitude is lower there, so we certainly have certain kinetic means”, the head of the Public Security Service added.
In July of this year, the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Vilnius City Government agreed on closer cooperation in creating a mechanism to respond to drones. It was decided that the protection of the capital’s critical infrastructure would be provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and mobile fire teams under local authorities.
As a reminder, on the night of October 27, Vilnius International Airport was temporarily closed due to balloons that flew in from the territory of Belarus. A similar situation occurred on the night of October 25-26, when the airspace was temporarily suspended due to balloons – about 3,500 passengers and 25 flights were affected, including 4 canceled and 7 redirected.
In total, flights were disrupted four times during the week. In this regard, Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginenė convened a meeting of the National Security Commission on October 27, at which a decision was made to close the border with Belarus for an indefinite period.
