7 September 2026

Lithuanian border guards overnight intercepted a homemade drone that flew in from Belarus near Daugidoniai in the Salcininkai district carrying 1,000 packs of Belarusian cigarettes. VSAT said anti-drone equipment brought it down, and officers found two boxes marked with the Grodno tobacco producer Neman. The cargo was valued at 5,510 euros including Lithuanian duties, and border guards opened administrative proceedings. It was the 55th smuggling drone seized on Lithuania’s border this year.

Lithuania’s State Security Department on Monday declared 22 Belarusian nationals working for a technology company a threat to national security and expelled them. Their temporary residence permits were revoked and they were banned from re-entering the Schengen area for five years. Investigators said the company linked to them fraudulently obtained almost 500,000 euros through an EU Space Programme Agency project and concealed ties to the Russian and Belarusian military industry.

Klaipeda port said it is pressing ahead with a southern expansion, with nearly 600 million euros allocated in its 2026–2029 plan. The wider southern area and infrastructure project will need about 1.4 billion euros in public and private funding, and the port plans to create about 100 hectares of new land by the end of 2028. Lithuania’s anti-corruption agency STT also identified corruption risks in the way municipalities manage state land.

A Rimi Lietuva logistics centre near Elektrenai received a BREEAM New Construction Excellent rating and now ranks among the five highest-scoring industrial buildings in the Baltics. Darnu Group said the 60 million euro project increased pallet capacity from 4,400 to 7,500 and raised the number of loading docks from 30 to more than 60. Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia lost another 1,540 troops over the past 24 hours, along with 51 artillery systems and four air-defence systems, in fighting tracked by Lithuanian readers as part of the region’s security picture.

Lithuania's interior minister said the government will seek ways to curb Russia's shadow fleet. He said the measures would cost Moscow hundreds of millions of euros.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has gone more than two weeks without external power, and Energoatom warned yesterday that the site is in a critical nuclear safety situation. The IAEA said the day before that a local ceasefire was in place for repairs, but the plant has relied on emergency diesel generators since August 20 to cool shut-down reactors and spent fuel. Russia also struck Zaporizhzhia’s largest shopping centre overnight. In Geneva today, UN rights chief Volker Turk said fully autonomous drones launched by Russia killed three people in Ukraine in August and called for an urgent ban on such weapons.

Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service said today it had briefed European national security advisers that Moscow is preparing heavier ballistic strikes on key Ukrainian infrastructure and possible provocations against European NATO members. The service said Russia has stockpiled about 400 missiles of various types and deployed extra launch systems in the Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh regions. The talks also covered Russia’s military-industrial output, which Ukraine said could reach about 300 ballistic missiles by year-end. Ukrainian Third Army Corps commander Andrii Biletsky filmed himself in central Sviatohirsk today and rejected Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russian troops had seized the Donetsk region town.

Russian drones struck the Orlivka border crossing in Odesa region over the past day, forcing Ukraine to close the Danube link with Romania. Orlivka handles ferry traffic and is one of the main southern routes for trade and travel, and Russia damaged infrastructure at the Tabaki checkpoint on Ukraine’s border with Moldova only days earlier. Europe is entering winter with its weakest gas buffer on record for early September: EU storage was 65.6% full on September 3, with Germany at 53%, the Netherlands at 47% and France at 71.3%. A colder winter or further LNG disruption would force Europe to pay more for imported gas.

The late news was dominated by the war in Ukraine. A drone attack damaged a block of flats in Zaporizhzhia and injured three people, while Ukrainian military intelligence struck a Russian aircraft in Crimea. Bloomberg reported that after talks with Donald Trump's envoys, Vladimir Putin decided to continue the war, with no breakthrough achieved.

A five-storey building in New Delhi's Satya Niketan area, used for student accommodation, collapsed and the death toll rose to six on Monday. The structure came down on Sunday afternoon while construction work was under way in the basement, and rescue teams with heavy machinery and search dogs were still looking for people trapped in the rubble. Delhi authorities ordered a magisterial inquiry and filed a case against the building owner.

In world markets, Brent crude held near $97 a barrel today and U.S. WTI rose above $92. U.S. retail diesel averaged $5.85 a gallon on Friday, a fresh record above its 2022 peak. Prices were driven higher after U.S. and Iranian strikes on vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz tightened Middle East supply, and analysts warned exports could remain constrained through the rest of 2026.

At Miami International Airport, an Amazon cargo Boeing 767-300 arriving from San Juan overran a runway, struck vehicles and caught fire on Sunday. At least five people were killed and five more were injured, three of them seriously, and the FAA and NTSB have opened a formal investigation.

Israeli strikes overnight on the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Rumman killed 11 people, including two young children. Nine people died in a three-storey building and two rescuers were killed when their vehicle was hit, while Israel said the attacks responded to ceasefire violations and accused Hezbollah of rebuilding military assets. In Kyiv, a senior Ukrainian presidential official said US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had brought new, more effective proposals to end the war with Russia, while Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated that territorial issues can only be settled in a direct meeting with Vladimir Putin. In Venice, George Clooney called Donald Trump's administration the least qualified, attacked media concentration in the United States and said the country could return to something closer to normal by 2028 if voters changed course.

At least five people were killed after an Amazon cargo plane crashed into a car park in Miami. Politico reported that China may have supplied Russia with tonnes of materials for drone production.