In part of the territories of Vilnius and Kaunas during a military exercise simulating a curfew, staged arrests of armed persons were carried out late on Tuesday evening. At that time, the capital’s police identified five drunk drivers and arrested one person in possession of drugs.
About 50 snipers belonging to the commando units along with several police crews from 10 p.m. on Tuesday. until 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday They stopped and checked cars, drivers’ documents, and controlled the territory in Vilnius’ Viršuliškii and Aukštyųi Panarii microdistricts.
The shooters and the police carried out the same raid in Kaunas, in the territory of Palemon.
Drunken drivers also got caught
At the busy intersection of Justiniškių and Šešuolių streets in Viršuliškės in the capital, both vehicles of participants in the exercises and ordinary Vilnius residents were checked – around midnight, the police arrested a BMW driver, in whose car the officers allegedly found drugs of plant origin.
As BNS was told by the Police Department, a pre-trial investigation has been launched into the possession of narcotic substances. Five drunk drivers were also identified during the exercise.
P. Peleckis / BNS photo.
In total, the capital’s police officers and snipers in Vilnius checked more than 700 vehicles during the curfew exercise.
After checking 343 cars and 45 individuals in Kaunas, no violations were found.
Later, according to a simulated exercise scenario, several specially marked cars were stopped, in which parts of weapons were found. Several arrested persons were handed over to the police, as stipulated in the exercise plan.
“The military commandant’s office is being trained – this is the most important and probably the first such real attempt to activate it (…), we are focused on hostile forces that have their markings, are marked with certain signs, the police carry out their routine – stop, check drivers” , – Lukas Vaičiulis, commander of Vilnius commandant riflemen, told journalists.
“I’d rather not see it in reality”
According to the exercise scenario, the commando units learned to counter the provocations of individuals that turned into military actions – drone attacks. The explosions were staged here, and firefighters were called in to put out the subsequent fire. First aid for wounded soldiers is also simulated.
All these actions are part of the Thunder 2024 exercise. In them, the Lithuanian army and all state institutions train for the transition from peacetime to wartime, going through all the stages and consistently performing the necessary actions.
“I can’t say whether it would be similar (in case of war – BNS), but I would like not to see it in reality,” said L. Vaičiulis.
He admitted that part of the public reacted skeptically or “openly pro-Russian” to the exercises, shared disparaging comments on social networks, but open physical incidents, according to the shooters’ representative, were avoided.
Together with the National Guard volunteer soldiers assigned to the commando units, the shooters also protected seven strategic critical infrastructure objects in the capital: the buildings of the Vilnius Municipality, Vilnius Water, Heat Networks, public transport, “Grinda”, the ambulance station, and their headquarters.
The exercise “Thunder Bastion” coincides with early voting in the presidential election and the referendum, which in most cities takes place in municipal buildings – they were guarded by armed riflemen or volunteer soldiers during the training.
The military emphasized that the exercise is not related to the early elections, during which no restrictions are applied to those who go to vote, as well as to any other activities of the population.
Residents missed information
Minister of National Defense Laurynas Kasčiūnas told reporters on Wednesday that the exercise was a success.
“The lesson learned is that the decision to postpone the preparation of commandantaries already in peacetime, (…) I think is what we need,” said the minister.
He also emphasized that the results of exercises related to the protection of strategic objects will help to identify how many people should make up the commandant’s offices being created.
For his part, the mayor of the capital, Valdas Benkunskas, admitted that the local residents should have been better informed about the ongoing exercises, because there were cases when people started calling the police when they saw the soldiers.
“Communication with residents needs to be strengthened. Although, in a broad sense, the exercise was informed more than half a month ago, (…) but when we already had specific situations with the introduction of curfew in certain areas, you saw that communication locally could have been stronger”, said the head of the capital.
V. Benkunskas said that the municipality wanted to convey information about the exercises to residents by sending special messages to phones, but the National Crisis Management Center recommended “not to panic”.
“We see that such a decision was wrong. Panic was caused,” said the mayor.
A total of more than 500 riflemen, army personnel and other institutions participated in the exercise.
Photo by Edgar Cickevičius.
