Good morning from a scorching Brussels. I’m Mared Gwyn.
Just in: Belarus’s opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has told Euronews that “democratic Belarus is with Ukraine” and that President Aliaksandr Lukashenka is willing to sacrifice Belarus’s “independence and sovereignty to stay in power”. Watch.
Tsikhanouskaya spoke from Kyiv, which over the weekend was targeted by an Oreshnik missile in what was one of Russia’s biggest attacks in the war to date. More on that below.
But we start today with the drone crisis rocking the Baltic nations – with European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen and defence chief Andrius Kubilius in Lithuania today for talks with the Lithuanian and Estonian Presidents after vowing a strong and united response to a series of recent drone incursions.
Last Wednesday, a drone alert ground Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, to a halt and saw people rush for shelter in bunkers. It was the fourth such incursion on Europe’s eastern flank in two weeks, with a NATO jet shooting down a drone over Estonia days earlier.
