Lithuanian officials train to repel raids by foreign saboteurs

The scenario of the tactical exercise involves special forces of a hypothetical hostile country named Udija illegally crossing the border and trying to take control of a border post and the police station in Šalčininkai, a town in Eastern Lithuania.

Officials at the Interior Ministry told BNS that they could not disclose the number of officers taking part in the exercise as it was still ongoing.

“We wanted to see in real-life conditions how Lithuania’s services would respond to such an emergency,” Interior Minister Eimutis Misiūnas said in a press release.

“Only the chiefs of the police, state border and public security services had been informed in advance about the exercise. Ordinary officers did not know in advance it was an exercise,” he said.

According to the minister, a key aim was to test interoperability among the services.

The results of the exercise will be evaluated after the heads of the services submit their reports.

“This was not a show-off exercise. There were not many shots or much smoke. Such hostile forces would move quietly and quickly, so it would be very important to spot them in time and respond in an adequate manner,” he said.

Lithuania’s services started paying more attention to hybrid threats in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.