VILNIUS, Lithuania (AFP) — A drone alert sent by Lithuania’s defense ministry to residents of the capital city Vilnius on Wednesday briefly brought transport to a standstill and caused people to flee to underground shelters.

Alerts of this kind have been increasingly common in recent months in the Baltic states as a result of intensified Ukrainian strikes against Russian targets in the Saint Petersburg region, close to Estonia and Finland.

But Wednesday’s alarm was the first in a European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization member country since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022 to trigger an order for the population — including the president, prime minister and members of parliament — to take shelter.

Political leaders were ushered into bunkers following a drone alert last year, but not the general population.

The alert came at around 10:20 a.m. local time on mobile phones: “Air raid alert! Go immediately to a shelter or a safe place, take care of your family members and wait for further instructions.”

Immediately, in offices and apartment buildings, civilians went down into basements or designated shelters, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent.

“I got dressed and went down to the basement,” photographer Andrej Vasilenko, who was in his apartment when the alert sounded, told AFP.

“I was alone, no other residents of the building were there.

“My child was at school and had gone down into a shelter, so I felt reassured. It was strange, but at the same time so many people in Ukraine have been living with this for four years.”

President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, as well as lawmakers, were taken to shelters, their offices told the BNS news agency.

Flights at Vilnius International Airport were suspended, while trains were brought to a halt.