It is not a fire. It is an attempt. On the night of 18 October, around 02:00, in Vilnius, someone tried to set satellite antennas and a control unit alight. Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said so on LRT Radio. Incendiary liquids. Containers of three to ten litres. The company had been warned. Security had been stepped up. The attempt failed.

The kit is Starlink. The space is rented by SpaceX from a Lithuanian firm. Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Centre, told reporters it is working infrastructure, part of a network that ties residents, firms and the army. BNS, carried by LRT, places the incident on the grounds of the Delska data centre. That is the place. The fire did not take.

On Facebook, Sinkevičius wrote that the attempt failed. On radio he went further: sabotage or diversion, part of Russia’s hybrid war against Europe, with precedents in Poland and Bulgaria. “It is likely already clear who commissioned it — the Russian side.” That is a prime minister’s assessment. It is not a verdict. Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas confirmed the fact and stopped the details: the incident is contained, it is being investigated.

Jolita Orentaitė, of the PAGD fire service, told BNS a pre-trial investigation had been opened. The suspects’ names are not public. Vitkauskas said they are being sought. Until an indictment, they remain unnamed.

On the same Sunday, in the north, near the Latvian border, a drone crashed and exploded. It damaged a car. Who owns it, whether it carried explosives, why it exploded: Sinkevičius said that is not yet known. LRT places the two incidents on the same day, not in the same inquiry.

The National Security Commission is called on Monday for both incidents. In September, in Poland, a Starlink ground station burned. Vitkauskas puts Vilnius, Sofia and Warsaw on the same thread: an attempt to tangle the network and, through it, Ukraine’s operations. That is his reading. The inquiry has only just opened.

Image: Diliff (David Iliff), Vilnius modern skyline at dusk, 11 September 2014, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph shows the city, not the Delska data centre.

Sources consulted: Lithuania foils arson attack on Starlink equipment, suspects Russian involvement — The Kyiv Independent; Attempted arson at Lithuanian firm storing Starlink equipment, PM blames Russia — LRT.