In September 2025, news spread in the media and Telegram channels about a drone found in a forest near the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, on which inscriptions were written in Ukrainian. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

Reports of this discovery circulated on September 15. The drone was allegedly found in the forest near the village of Juliškės near Visaginas. The drone was in a bag along with additional parts and lead bullets, and the inscription “Oberezhno, rukhoma chastina” (“Caution, moving part” - Ukrainian) was applied to the body. It is clarified that local residents who discovered the drone reported the discovery to law enforcement agencies, but their appeal was ignored.

They wrote about the drone found in the forest: “Russian newspaper", "Constantinople", Lenta.ru, "Gazeta.ru", as well as Telegram channels "KB"(235,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "The world of Mikhail Onufrienko"(185,000), "Ukraine.ru"(115,000), Full-Time Trading (34,000), etc.

From July to September 2025, officials from several European countries announced the detection of drones on their territory. Thus, on July 10, in the area of the closed checkpoint “Šumskas” near Vilnius recorded the fall of a drone, which, according to authorities, flew in from the direction of Belarus. On July 28, at the Lithuanian training ground 100 km from the border, there was found the same UAV, but with 2 kg of explosives, which is why the Lithuanian authorities asked NATO to strengthen air defense. August 24 in Tartu, Estonia discovered wreckage of an attack drone, presumably fired by the Ukrainian military. On the night of September 9-10 into Polish airspace invaded about 20 drones, in which identified Russian "Gerberas". In response, the North Atlantic Alliance launched Operation Eastern Sentinel to strengthen the defenses of Eastern European countries. All incursions by foreign UAVs into the airspace of these states were widely covered as local, so international Media.

At the same time, not a single authoritative Lithuanian or European publication reported the discovery of a drone wrapped in a bag in the forest. If the citizens’ appeal was indeed not recorded by the police, it is likely that information about the find could have spread throughout groups of local residents on social networks, but such “Verified” publications could not be found. It is noteworthy that mainly Russian-speaking bloggers and publications talked about the bag with the drone.

Proof that a drone with an inscription in Ukrainian was found in a Lithuanian forest is an 18-second video. It is not possible to reliably establish where it was filmed: there are no identifying marks on the video, and the frames change quickly, which makes it difficult to examine the shooting location in more detail. At the same time, the video itself is superimposed on top of another video with the passage of a computer game and is accompanied by a caption in Lithuanian: “Maybe this is a UFO? Should I call the police?

Viral video. Source: Telegram

In the upper left corner of the video is the TikTok logo and the username of the user who posted video, - @katelynltu. He published this video on September 4, and also posted six more videos that collected several dozen views and were not related to Lithuania. The blogger has no subscriptions or subscribers. The profile description states: “I love music, dancing and having fun with friends.” Most of the videos published by this account were previously distributed on the Internet - for example, AI videos with avocado appeared at least two months ago, other rollers Also became viral long before publication on the @katelynltu page. Moreover, the same profile photo is used in at least two others TikTok accounts.

Above is a screenshot of the page where the viral video first appeared; below are screenshots of other pages with the same profile photo. Source: collage “Verified”

In some Telegram posts, the username @AlekseyStefanov is also indicated in the video. It was in this channel, which belongs to Alexey Stefanov, an employee of the Rossiya Segodnya media holding, that the video was first published with the clarification that a bag with a drone was discovered in a Lithuanian forest. Related post by Stefanov posted September 15 at 12:40 Moscow time, 11 days after the video appeared on TikTok. In addition to the video, two photographs with the alleged contents of the bag were attached to the publication. The post says that these materials were sent to the author by subscribers.

Photos from Stefanov's post. Source: Telegram / collage “Verified”

Stefanov is a former Latvian journalist who moved to Russia in 2012. In 2016, he began working for Russia Today, and at the beginning of 2024 he received Russian citizenship. His name often appears in reports And investigations research centers studying the spread of pro-Kremlin disinformation in the Baltic countries. IN report The State Security Service of Latvia for 2022 notes that Stefanov’s channel “systematically justified the murder of Ukrainian citizens and the destruction of cities.”

Representative of the Lithuanian National Crisis Management Center Darius Buta in conversation with a Delfi correspondent statedthat the police and other services did not receive reports of the found package with the drone. He called the video distributed on social networks a fake.

Thus, the only evidence of a drone found in a Lithuanian forest with inscriptions in Ukrainian is a video that appeared on an almost empty TikTok blog that had nothing to do with Lithuania, and 11 days later it was distributed by a pro-Kremlin journalist. However, it is not possible to determine exactly where the video was filmed.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons