Nato fighters scrambled over Lithuania as Russia blitzes Ukrainian market

NATO fighters were scrambled over Lithuania today after a kamikaze drone was feared to have entered its airspace.

People living in Vilnius were ordered to take precautions, as the country borders Russia and its ally Belarus.

The alert which went off was a ‘radar signal characteristic of unmanned aerial vehicles’.

Later it was stated that the incursion may have been a weather balloon, but it comes as Russia launched a blitz on a Ukrainian market.

A dozen cluster bombs were unleashed on the Dnipropetrovsk region with at least one person killed and 13 wounded in the strike on Vasylkivka.

A residential building was also partially destroyed, and shops and other businesses were damaged.

This comes as NATO is preparing to give its Commander-in-Chief in Europe more power to shoot down drones without reference to national governments.

The issue will be raised at the NATO summit in Ankara, on July 7-8.

This comes as Vladimir Putin’s forces are killing innocent Ukrainian civilians at a higher rate than at any time for the past four years of war.

Statistics from the UN show 274 civilians were killed and 1,763 injured in Ukraine in May.

‘The documented harm to the civilian population was not limited to settlements near the front line,’ said the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell.

‘In cities throughout Ukraine, repeated attacks with missiles and aerial bombs resulted in the deaths and injuries of civilians far from the areas of active ground combat.’

It is the highest number since April 2022.

Ukraine hit multiple military targets overnight including again striking bridge access to the Crimean Peninsula in a further blow to Putin.

Kyiv is seeking to impose a blockade on the occupied territory.

Drones hit Crimean Titan plant in occupied Armiansk, the region’s largest chemical plant, and a manufacturer of titanium oxide. A power plant was also struck.

Separately there were strikes on the port of Taman as Ukraine consolidated its growing advantage in the war.

New footage showed panic as Ukraine earlier hit the Taneko oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, one of the largest in Russia, in an 800 mile drone strike.

The Russians hit Kherson city with airstrikes setting ablaze warehouses. Earlier, they killed one person and 15 were injured in attacks on the region.

Residential buildings, infrastructure, and equipment were damaged.

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