Executive Summary
Lithuania has no way to put Russian refineries, airfields or command centres at risk. Russian glide-bomb production runs at roughly 75,000 a year (RUSI, 2025) and Shahed-style drones reached a single-night wave of 810 on 7 September 2025 (H I Sutton). On 2 March 2026, President Macron named France's nuclear-umbrella partners at Ile Longue (Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, with the United Kingdom at Northwood); the Baltics were not on the list. The Treaty of Nancy, signed in Nancy on 9 May 2025 between France and Poland, had its first Tusk-Macron follow-up in Gdansk on 20 April 2026 (Notes from Poland); Lithuania is not a party. The Iran air campaign of 28 February to 8 April 2026 (39 days, around 1,471 ballistic missiles) drove Gulf-allied PAC-3 stocks to about 14 per cent remaining, with US-specific stocks near 50 per cent (CSIS Last Rounds; CNN, 21 April 2026). Lockheed's PAC-3 ramp from 600 to 2,000 a year arrives in 2030. The recommended next step is for the Ministry of National Defence and the Seimas Defence Committee to commission an engineering and legal study of a sovereign deep-strike tier built on the only combat-validated model: Ukrainian long-range one-way attack drones (Lyutyi, Beaver, AN-196) at €30,000-60,000 per unit, plus a small number of cruise missiles in the Long-Neptune class at around €1.2 million. Two findings drive sequencing. First, without a hardened Lithuanian magazine of 1,500-2,500 ready interceptors, a Russian retaliation at 90-180 weapons per wave exhausts current inventory in about 3.7 waves; deep-strike before home defence is self-defeating. Second, only the northern arc (Pulkovo, Smolensk, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, Kaliningrad, 300-700 km) is reachable via direct Belarus or Russia overflight; the southern arc (Saratov, Volgograd, Engels-2, Novorossiysk) needs Polish airspace transit Poland has no interest in granting. Final architecture, budget profile, partner roles and legal authorities for cross-border action are decisions for Lithuanian institutions.
The Problem
Russian rear targets sit in sanctuary 600-1,500 km from the Belarusian border: refineries (Ryazan, Saratov, Volgograd, Samara), strategic-bomber bases (Engels-2, Belaya, Akhtubinsk), oil terminals (Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Primorsk) and command nodes for the Western and Southern Military Districts. Russian deep-strike output runs at about 200-250 weapons a day across glide bombs, one-way attack drones and cruise missiles (RUSI 2025; Euronews 2 April 2026 on March monthly Geran-3 tally of 4,186). Lithuania's strike inventory is zero. Long-range strike capability ends at 70-300 km (HIMARS GMLRS, with PrSM block 1 not yet delivered).
Lithuania has no long-range one-way attack drones, no land-attack cruise missile, no national targeting cell for Russian strategic targets, and no national-command protocol for cross-border kinetic action. The Sakaliene amendments of 23 September 2025 (militarnyi.com) authorise the armed forces to engage airspace violators in restricted areas without prior interagency clearance; they do not authorise cross-border kinetic strikes. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty is a political consultation trigger, not an automatic legal authority for offensive action (Belfer Center 2025); UN Charter Article 51 covers reactive territorial self-defence after an armed attack, not pre-emptive cross-border first use (Just Security 2025).
Without action: Without sovereign deep-strike, Russian planners face no homeland cost from limited aggression against Lithuania. The asymmetry is one-way: Russia imposes cost on Lithuania, Lithuania imposes none on Russia.
Lithuanian Context
Vilnius sits 35 km from the Belarusian border. Lithuania is absent from the Ile Longue partner list (absent, not explicitly excluded) and not a party to the Treaty of Nancy or its Gdansk follow-up. Only the northern arc is reachable without Polish airspace transit: Pulkovo around 700 km, Smolensk around 600 km, Bryansk around 500 km, Voronezh and Kursk around 700 km, the Kaliningrad Motor Rifle Division within 250 km, Western Military District headquarters in Saint Petersburg around 700 km. Southern-arc targets (Saratov, Volgograd, Engels-2, Novorossiysk) require Polish transit, which Poland has no incentive to grant given the Sandworm wiper attack on Polish power-station systems on 29-30 December 2025 (ESET) and Poland's own retaliation exposure. Russian retaliation would follow the Sandworm, NotPetya, OPCW and PyeongChang pattern at 1.5-3 times scale: roughly 90-180 strike weapons per wave against Lithuania's energy, command and production infrastructure. At 500 ready Lithuanian interceptors today (NASAMS three batteries, $214 million AIM-9X foreign military sales approved 24 April 2026, 48 Merops counter-drone units approved 22 April 2026), the magazine collapses in around 3.7 waves. Phase 1 must therefore harden the home magazine to 1,500-2,500 ready rounds and the energy grid to 30-day continuity before serial deep-strike production begins. The Lithuanian armed forces' command of cross-border kinetic action sits outside the Sakaliene airspace amendments and would require either a Seimas declaration (two-thirds, 94 of 141 votes) or a State Defence Council high-threat designation, with parallel pre-coordination through Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the NATO Multi-Domain Headquarters at Wiesbaden.