"The plane violated the country's airspace," Gediminas Kirkilas said, adding that Lithuanian air traffic controllers had been watching the plane for six minutes before it crashed and said the planes seemed to have veered off course.
As soon as the Russian plane entered Lithuanian air space, NATO Fanthom F4 fighters took off from a Lithuanian air base to follow the aircraft.
The Lithuanian Defense Ministry also said the pilot of the Russian fighter, Air Force Major Valery Troyanov, 36, had ejected from the plane. Lithuanian media said local residents had told the police they had seen the pilot returning to the ground.
The commander of the Lithuanian Air Force, Colonel Jonas Marcinkus, said after Lithuanian investigators had questioned Troyanov that he had been taken to Kaunas, Lithuania's second largest city, for medical checks.
The Lithuanian police said the crash had caused no major damage and nobody had been hurt.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian warplane was flying from St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, but then the pilot lost his bearings due to a navigation equipment failure and strayed into Lithuanian airspace.
