In early autumn this year Vilnius airport is to welcome another new development - a new direct route to the largest city in western Ukraine - Lviv. These flights are to be launched as of 16 September this year. They shall be performed throughout the year three times a week.

On August 2 rotational troops from Poland deployed in Lithuania for joint exercises and training. Roughly 130 Polish soldiers deployed from the 7th Mounted Rifle Battalion, 17th Mechanised Brigade, Polish Land Force. Through the first week of training they will be stationed at Duke Vaidotas Mechanised Infantry Battalion in Rukla. Later the troops will move to Alytus to train in Exercise Strong Hussar with military personnel of Duchess Birutė Uhlan Battalion. The polish soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania until the end of August.

Lithuania this year ranks tenth in the world in the number of planned jobs from foreign direct investment (FDI) per million inhabitants, up from 18th place last year, according to the IBM Global Location Trends 2016 report.

On August 2 the Lithuanian Armed Forces will fire the first shots from the self-propelled PzH 2000 howitzers at home, in the Brigadier General Povilas Plechavičius Training Area (Klaipėda distr.). Over a thousand of participants will carry out indirect fire tasks at Exercise Flaming thunder 2016 from 1 to 12 August I three locations: BG Silvestras Žukauskas Training Area in Pabradė, BG Povilas Plechavičius Training Area in Kairiai, and in the Gaižiūnai Training Area.

Electricity consumption in Lithuania increased by 5.6% in the first half of this year compared with same period last year to reach 4.5 bln kilowatt-hours (kWh), Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius (Energy Distribution Operator, or ESO) said.

The euro area (EA19) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.1% in June 2016, stable compared to May 2016 and down from 11.0% in June 2015.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is concerned about the piece of information in the Belarusian press about another possible incident in the Astravets nuclear power plant (NPP) on 10 July 2016. Lithuania is following the situation in the Belarusian NPP closely and is currently checking if the information is correct. Reappearance of information about suspected incidents at the construction site prove that Lithuania’s concern over the safety of the Astravets NPP is justified, and the construction process lacks openness and transparency.

The NordBalt power interconnection between Lithuania and Sweden that went offline on Tuesday evening will be in repairs until late hours of Friday.

Russian company Yandex which offers internet services is planning to enter the Baltic countries, Kazakhstan and Georgia with its taxi-hailing app Yandex.Taxi.

The Lithuanian police have prevented almost 3.5 million euros worth of fake 50-euro notes from getting into the market in the country and abroad.