Police have received around 900 false reports about explosives in schools, kindergartens and other places across Lithuania, but there was "no reason to panic", Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė said on Friday.
"I want to stress that these are false reports," Bilotaitė told reporters. “Let’s not panic, because there really is no reason to.”
Bilotaitė said she met with law enforcement officials to find a response to such threats in the future.
"It was agreed that, by the end of the workday, the Police Department will prepare an appropriate response algorithm, both general and specific, which will be adapted to the relevant institutions, such as those in the field of health or social security," the minister said.
On Friday morning, the police reported that it registered "140 Russian-language reports of threats to blow up schools and kindergartens", according to Ramūnas Matonis, a spokesperson for the Police Department.
The number of hoax threats continued to grow, with some schools being evacuated.
The police spokesperson denied the bomb threats were specifically targeting Jewish institutions. Matonis said some of the bomb threats may have included Jewish schools.
Recently, the authorities in Estonia and Latvia reported receiving similar bomb threats.
"I would like to ask you not to panic, because the apparent main aim of the initiators is to cause panic," said Commissioner General of Police Renatas Požėla.
"Similar attacks are taking place in other Baltic countries, with a peak in Latvia a few days ago and in Estonia as well. We have faced such attacks before, last year," he said. "To my knowledge, Poland has also faced them, Moldova has also faced them, and Ukraine was hit [with fake bomb threats] before the start of the war."
Most of the threatening messages are written in Russian, Požėla said. Some demand a ransom and others are political in nature.
"This started yesterday – Klaipėda received, I think, 23 such threats and Vilnius received one, and a mass attack began last night," he said.
Požėla added that the police are responding and inspecting every school or kindergarten that has been threatened.
‘Coordinated attack’
Lithuania’s intelligence agency, the State Security Department (VSD), said the threats across the Baltic states appeared “to be a targeted and coordinated attack carried out at the initiative of hostile states”.
"The false reports and actions of a similar nature are aimed at creating tension and panic in society, disturbing and destabilising the work of institutions, and increasing mistrust," Aurelija Vernickaitė, the intelligence agency's spokesperson, told BNS.
"As geopolitical tensions rise, Lithuania and the other Baltic states are constant targets of information and cyber-attacks by hostile states,” she added.
Jewish school worried
Ruth Reches, head of the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius, said classes are being held remotely on Friday. Students' parents will also be on duty at the school from Monday.
"We are very worried. Reches told LRT RADIO. "The war continues [in Israel], and we are very much hoping for more active help from the police – not just to drive by the school a few times, but perhaps to place a police car near the school."
Matonis said the police may station officers at the school if they see a threat. The police would then send "not one or two cars, but as many as needed", he said.
The spokesperson added that there was a reinforced police presence at "up to ten sites" in Vilnius alone.
Some schools evacuating, moving to remote learning
On Friday, some schools evacuated students and staff and moved to remote learning.
Tomas Gulbinas, a member of the Vilnius City Council and former vice-mayor of the capital, assured that schools are adequately prepared to deal with the threat.
"Let's not be intimidated, school staff are trained on how to behave. Last year, when an explosive – more of a smoke bomb – was actually planted in a school in Vilnius, the staff evacuated the children in almost the same amount of time as during the exercises," he said on Facebook.
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