2 June 2026

Robertas Kaunas said on Monday he had assurances from Washington that US troops will return to Lithuania and said Vilnius is taking part in talks on possible nuclear deployments in Europe. After the Financial Times report, the defence minister noted that Lithuania’s constitution bars weapons of mass destruction, meaning any concrete plan would trigger a legal and parliamentary fight.

Border guards in the Salcininkai district on Monday found a crashed drone carrying Belarusian cigarettes. The State Border Guard Service said officers had first heard the drone late on Sunday near the Purvenai border post, tracked it on video and used anti-drone equipment. In the same wider area, investigators this week detained 27 suspects in a contraband case, including 13 officers, and found thermal imagers, drones, GPS transmitters and radio gear in searches across six municipalities.

Kaunas Akropolis shopping centre was evacuated on Monday, with people told to leave their cars as well. Lithuania’s election commission revoked Jevgenijus Suklinas’s parliamentary mandate. The foreign ministry also rejected fresh Russian criticism directed at Lithuania.

In business, Prime Prometics said 2025 revenue topped 101 million euros, more than doubling in a year, while e-commerce company Varle reported revenue of more than 104 million euros and profit up by nearly 50%. Eurostat data showed Lithuania’s annual harmonised inflation rate rose to 5.1% in May, the second-highest in the EU after Estonia, while Elektrum Lietuva said record solar output cut electricity prices by 23%.

Late attention focused on the death of a 40-year-old Lithuanian MP. Germany’s brigade was also reported to have moved to Lithuania for training on the country’s ranges, while Politico named Virginijus Sinkevičius among the candidates to lead the Greens in the European Parliament.

Kyiv was hit by another massive Russian attack, with at least nine people killed and about 90 injured after part of a nine-storey apartment block collapsed in the Podilskyi district. Ukraine said Russia launched 656 drones and 73 missiles overnight, striking several cities and energy infrastructure. Thick smoke hung over the capital, and mayor Vitali Klitschko said 58 people were injured in Kyiv alone. Ukrainian officials said the barrage also included ballistic missiles.

In Dnipro, Russian missile and drone strikes killed at least seven people, damaged apartment blocks and other infrastructure, and left rescue teams searching through rubble. Poland scrambled fighter jets over the past day, raised the readiness of ground-based air defences and tightened surveillance in the east. Ukrainian drones also struck two specialised Russian aircraft, while a separate attack sparked a fire at a Russian oil refinery. Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukrainian intelligence sees two likely scenarios for Russia’s next large-scale strike: another wave of missiles and drones, or attacks focused on energy and transport assets.

Ukrainian authorities are also carrying out urgent evacuations from threatened areas, with thousands of residents being moved from frontline zones. In Brussels, EU governments agreed a migration reform over the past day that opens the way for return centres outside the bloc. Britain barred two US political commentators from entering the country. Croatia is preparing rules that would let local authorities restrict alcohol sales in resort areas because of problems linked to drunken tourists. France said it would not supply Israel with offensive weapons.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned in the evening that Russia could launch another mass attack on Ukraine overnight. At the same time, Kyiv said Ukrainian forces shot down more than 57,000 Russian missiles and drones in May.

Ukraine said a major Russian missile and drone attack killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 100 today. The overnight strikes hit Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro, damaging apartment blocks and setting off fires at several sites. In Kyiv, an apartment building caught fire and Mayor Vitali Klitschko said rescue crews were working in several districts.

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes near a hospital killed four people and wounded 127. Israel’s military also told residents of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon today to leave their homes before planned strikes on Hezbollah targets. Lebanon’s health ministry had already reported fatalities from earlier Israeli attacks in the south, and civil defence teams from the Tyre area moved to Sidon after previous evacuation orders. In Gaza, three Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli attacks.

The World Health Organization said suspected Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo fell from 906 to 116 after field teams and lab testing narrowed the list of alerts. WHO said the earlier figure had been inflated by broad surveillance and unconfirmed reports from several health zones in the country’s east. The agency still treats the outbreak as an international health emergency and is now focusing on contact tracing, isolation and targeted vaccination.

At the UN Security Council, at least 13 states demanded Russia be held accountable after a drone hit an apartment block in Romania’s Galati and wounded two people. Romanian President Nicusor Dan said the aircraft was a Russian-made Geran-2, while NATO and the European Union are coordinating extra air-defence measures with Bucharest. In northern Iraq, one US soldier and one British soldier were killed during exercises, and both militaries opened inquiries. In Taiwan today, two people were killed in a training aircraft crash.

Donald Trump said talks with Iran are continuing and dismissed reports that dialogue could be cut off. Marco Rubio said a new US arms sale to Taiwan is still under consideration and that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is alive and becoming more involved in running the country.