Lithuania Starlink arson attempt fails; Russian hand suspected

Lithuanian authorities stopped a Lithuania Starlink arson attempt overnight, and Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius said Russia was the likely sponsor. 

The attackers tried to burn satellite antennas and a control unit at a company that stores Starlink equipment. The attempt came at around 2 a.m. on Sunday.

Investigators found incendiary liquids at the scene, in containers holding between three and 10 liters, Sinkevicius told the national broadcaster.

How the Lithuania Starlink arson failed

Officials had warned the company about possible attacks and had stepped up security there. As a result, the Lithuania Starlink arson attempt failed, the prime minister wrote on Facebook.

Fire and rescue officials said a pre-trial investigation had begun. Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas told journalists the incident was under control and under investigation, but he gave no further detail.

Sinkevicius called it a clear act of sabotage. “We will learn more about who ordered it,” he said, adding that the Russian side was the likely sponsor.

Part of a wider pattern

The prime minister described the incident as one piece of Russia’s hybrid war on the continent. He pointed to similar suspected sabotage in Poland and Bulgaria.

However, this was not the first such case. Fire damaged a Starlink ground station at Wola Krobowska in Poland on Sept. 23. Security agents there have since detained a third suspect.

Bulgarian police detained two foreigners, aged 20 and 21, who hold German passports. They are suspects in an attack on Starlink infrastructure on the night of October 9.

Separately, the government froze the assets of the Russian oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman once the EU took them off its sanctions list.

Investigators are now trying to identify the attackers, and the pre-trial probe is only at its start. Also, Sinkevicius said Lithuania watches the activity of hostile states very closely and takes steps to protect people and property.

Drone crash adds to alarm

The sabotage attempt came on the same night as a drone incident. A drone fell and blew up in northern Lithuania, near the Latvian border, and damaged a passing car.

Vilmantas Vitkauskas, who leads the National Crisis Management Center, told the radio that officials could not yet say whether explosives were on board.

Nobody has said who owned it. The prime minister said it was crucial to establish where the drone came from and where radar first spotted it. Ukraine launched a large attack on St Petersburg on Sunday, and similar drone incidents have followed Ukrainian raids on that city before.

On Sunday morning, officials called on people in the central and northern parts of the country to shelter for around an hour after an unknown flying object appeared.

The prime minister said the warning system did not work perfectly, since reports reached officials only from the Kaunas district.

Sinkevicius called the National Security Commission to meet on Monday to discuss both events. The agenda covers how far police can go in neutralizing hostile drones.

Meanwhile, the Lithuania Starlink arson case shows how satellite gear has become a target, as Ukraine relies on Starlink links for communications.