A Nato fighter jet was scrambled to shoot down a drone earlier today, only for the pilot to realise it was a flock of birds.
Lithuania’s Vilnius Airport was closed on Sunday and an air alert was declared in response to a possible sighting of a drone in the country’s airspace.
A Nato jet was summoned from northern Lithuania, where the Italian air force is based as part of the NATO Baltic Air Defence mission.
However, the Nato jet realised the unidentified object was actually just birds, Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre said.
‘On initial radar readings, marks left by birds and drones can be similar,’ it added in a statement.
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The false alarm took place during the Vilnius marathon, but the race was not interrupted, organisers confirmed.
The country’s military said earlier this week that drones aimed at Ukraine have landed in Lithuanian territory.
Russian drones have been at the centre of heightened tensions between Nato and Moscow in recent months.
A drone rigged with explosives and an ‘unknown substance’ was found next to a Ukrainian cargo plane in Leipzig in August.
Police called a bomb squad to conduct a remote detonation, and there were no injuries or fatalities.
The air alert was lifted, and the airport reopened within 38 minutes.
Germany said Russia was behind the attack and closed the country’s consulate in Bonn and the contract for the Russian House in Berlin.
Russia has denied any involvement and claimed Germany was trying to start a ‘real war’ by blaming the Kremlin.
The incident came just months after Russian-backed saboteurs were believed to be behind a firebomb which detonated at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham – dubbed a ‘test run’ by spies from the country.
European authorities, including MI6, previously alleged that Russia is behind the expanding campaign of sabotage on planes.
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