Lithuania is fast-tracking technology to counter a recent influx of smuggled balloons and unmanned aerial vehicles from Belarus. Dozens of Lithuanian companies have put forward proposals for innovative ways to detect, monitor, identify and neutralize aerial threats, reports LRT.
Vice Minister of Economy Paulius Petrauskas said the government expects to select the best ideas within weeks and develop the technology within six months.
โIn two weeks, we will have selected companies and ideas. Then we will take additional measures alongside these ideas to help develop the technology,โ Petrauskas told LRT RADIO.
The Interior Ministry is already working on technical specifications for procurement that will enable testing and integration into existing systems.
Lithuania is working closely with Ukraine on trials and deployment of both existing and new technologies; some of the developed systems have already been tested in Ukraine.
According to Petrauskas, only South Korea and Israel have faced threats comparable to Lithuaniaโs, making off-the-shelf solutions hard to obtain. โThere are not that many other threats or chaos caused by neighboring countries. Therefore, it is quite difficult to purchase solutions - they have to be built from scratch,โ he noted.
In 2024, Ukraineโs Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Strategic Industries signed a memorandum with the Lithuanian government on defense industry cooperation. The document provides for joint production of drones, munitions, electronic warfare systems and the development of cutting-edge technologies. This year, those intentions have already moved into practice.
