Due to the very short warning time, there was not enough time to notify local residents about the threat posed by the drone, Commander of the National Armed Forces, Major General Kaspars Pudāns, said in an interview on Latvian Television’s programme “Rīta panorāma”.
He explained that in order to provide accurate information to residents who could potentially be affected, a certain amount of time is required to determine the possible direction and trajectory of the threat. In this case, the warning window was too short.
Pudāns acknowledged that certain indicators and sensors did not provide the necessary information that would have allowed the situation to be assessed more quickly. He noted that while the threat assessment and calculations were being carried out, the object had already either left Latvian territory or exploded and no longer posed a threat.
According to the commander of the National Armed Forces, the initial focus was on gathering the responsible units in order to understand the situation and its possible development as quickly as possible.
Once it was concluded that there was no longer a threat to residents, a decision was made not to issue a public alert.
Pudāns added that the situation will be evaluated. He reminded that cell broadcast alerts are not intended to reassure the public, but to prompt specific action. At the same time, it will be assessed whether issuing a notification after the incident would have produced the desired effect.
He also suggested that in the future, other solutions could be used to inform local residents in similar situations, for example, direct on-site communication.
The Minister of Smart Administration and Regional Development, Raimonds Čudars, said in the same programme that it is possible to model scenarios in which a warning message is issued to a specific area. At the same time, it must be assessed whether such a warning could have more negative consequences than the incident itself.
The minister emphasised that lessons must be learned from each such case,
while also noting that the responsible services acted promptly, and made decisions appropriate to each situation. According to Čudars, there is currently no basis for issuing a broader public warning related to this specific incident in a defined area.
It has already been reported that this week drones entered and exploded in all three Baltic states. Most likely, while Ukraine was defending itself against Russian aggression, these drones were intended to strike targets in Russia but deviated from their course or were redirected due to electronic warfare interference.
Officials in the Baltic states have stressed that these incidents are a consequence of Russia’s full-scale war of aggression and that similar situations may occur again.
Early Monday morning in Lithuania’s Varėna district, near the border with Belarus, a drone crashed
onto the frozen Lavysas Lake.
In Latvia, a drone entered the country’s airspace during the night leading into Wednesday from Russia and exploded in the Krāslava region approximately one kilometre from the centre of Svariņi parish, while another object briefly entered from Belarusian territory and then returned toward Russia.
Meanwhile, in northeastern Estonia, a drone that entered from Russian airspace crashed into the chimney of the Auvere power plant on Wednesday morning.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė confirmed that the drone that crashed and exploded was a Ukrainian drone intended for a target in Russia.
The President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has also stated that the unmanned aerial vehicle that entered Latvian airspace and detonated was a Ukrainian drone, apparently part of a coordinated Ukrainian operation against Russian targets.
During the night leading into Wednesday, Ukraine carried out drone strikes on the Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Vyborg in the Leningrad region. Prior to that, Ukrainian drones struck the port of Primorsk in northwestern Russia.
These ports are located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea.
Read also: Drone from Russia enters Latvian airspace and crashes
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