00:01For years, Baltic states squeezed between Russia and Belarus have been warning of the risks that
00:06Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine poses to the region. The alert on May 20th for people
00:12to flee underground over a drone in Lithuanian airspace was the starkest reminder in years that
00:18emergency planning should be fully operational. However, the incident revealed that for many
00:23residents, this was not the case.
00:25We knew the shelters. We went to one of them, but it was covered in cobwebs and it seemed
00:31that no one is there for sure, or it wasn't unlocked for a really long time and it wasn't
00:36marked. So we then passed another one that also didn't have any signs. And then we came
00:44to the one that I'm standing next to at the moment. And yeah, it's the biggest shelter,
00:50it seems, from the maps. And we couldn't get in for like 18 minutes probably.
00:56Problems were so commonplace that Lithuania's prime minister, who had taken shelter with
01:01other lawmakers, offered a public apology for communication errors and vowed a review of
01:06procedures.
01:06I think that you cannot be fully prepared for all the situations and actions. But what
01:13we tested and what we actually, and how we reacted, shows that we have a system, we have
01:19a knowledge, we have an infrastructure, but at the same time, there's still some gaps of
01:24what I'd like to face. And I think that there was a good exercise for the government, for the
01:30institutions, for the businesses, and for the, you know, simple citizens who was like participating.
01:35The goal is also to train more of Lithuania's 2.8 million citizens for the event of an emergency
01:42and to roll out a network of modular training facilities that could serve as shelters.
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