VILNIUS: Lithuania’s Defense Ministry has advised its citizens how to react in case of war, reflecting jitters over neighboring Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and a recent increase of reported airspace violations in the Baltic region.

The 98-page booklet, entitled “How to act in extreme situations or instances of war,” is to be distributed next week in Lithuania, a NATO member that was under Moscow’s rule from 1940 until 1991.

Defense Minister Juozas Olekas has told Lithuanian radio such advice were “more urgent than ever” because of what he called “Russia’s aggression against its neighbors, presently in Ukraine.”

The booklet, written by military experts and already available on the ministry’s web site, also gives advice on coping with natural disasters, major accidents and terrorist attacks.

Russia’s increased military activity in the Baltic Sea area has prompted some officials to compare it to the Cold War. Part of Lithuania’s border runs along the Russian Kaliningrad enclave, where Moscow has important military bases.

After regaining independence in 1991, Lithuania and Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia turned to the West, joining NATO and the European Union in 2004. NATO conducts air patrols over the Baltic Sea and rotates military units in and out of member countries in the region.

Meanwhile, sources said Saturday that fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed three soldiers. Further battles shook the area around the Donetsk airport on Saturday, with Ukraine’s military saying it was defending its positions despite rebel claims that they had taken control of the site.

The wrecked shell of the airport has been repeatedly hit by battles, but remains of symbolic and strategic importance. “The situation there is really difficult,” military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a briefing.

“There are constant attacks and attempts to attack, but the military command constantly sends reinforcements.”

He said three Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 18 others wounded over the past day, bringing the military’s toll to at least nine dead since Thursday. At least five civilians have been reported killed since Thursday.

It was not clear if the new toll included a soldier killed by a booby-trapped honey jar that exploded in the Lugansk region on Friday.

An elderly man identifying himself as a local resident in Stanicya Lugans’ka handed soldiers at a checkpoint a three-liter jar of honey and thanked them for their service before walking away, said Lugansk regional governor Hennadiy Moskal.