Tonight, some areas of Vilnius and Kaunas were put under curfew as part of the military exercise. Here is how it looked up close.
The curfew was in force from Tuesday at 22:00 to Wednesday at 5:00 in the Viršuliškės and Aukštieji Paneriai areas in Vilnius and the Palemonas area in Kaunas.
The exercise was aimed at checking the readiness of institutions and organisations to carry out mobilisation and host nation tasks, requisitioning of property, and the declaration of curfew.
The uniformed soldiers with weapons did not surprise the residents of Viršuliškės, as they said they knew about the exercise in advance.
“I heard about it. A colleague told me about it, and I read some articles online but didn’t look too much into it. We just laughed that we would have to walk the dog before 22:00 to avoid being checked,” Vilma, one of the residents, told LRT.lt.
The woman assured that she was not intimidated by the soldiers, adding that such exercises are necessary.
“I think it’s very good for people to get to know how these things happen so that there is no doubt on day X,” the Viršuliškės resident said.
Major Donatas Suchockis, chief officer for Military-Civilian Cooperation of the Defence Headquarters, told LRT RADIO that the curfew is declared to manage territorial or hybrid threats: intelligence, diversionary, or criminogenic.
The curfew exercises were just a small part of the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ Thunder Storm 2024 exercise, one of the largest national military drills.
The Thunder Storm 2024 exercise trains the Lithuanian Armed Forces and all state institutions in the transition from peacetime to wartime. The exercise will last until May 10 and will include more than 4,000 Lithuanian troops, as well as representatives of the Riflemen’s Union.
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