balloon

Entry to Lithuania still allowed for certain travellers, including EU citizens and humanitarian visa-holders.

Lithuania is tightening its border with Belarus for a month after waves of balloons carrying contraband cigarettes entered its airspace.

Lithuania’s cabinet decided Wednesday to continue halting traffic at the Salcininkai crossing in the southeast until the end of November, while heavily restricting passage at its only other crossing, Medininkai, near the capital Vilnius, according to the BNS news agency.

Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovic said the measures would “send a clear message to our not-so-friendly neighbour” over the balloon incursions, which disrupted air traffic at Vilnius airport over the weekend and prompted it to first close the two crossings.

Diplomats, Lithuanian citizens, nationals of the European Union and NATO member states and their family members, as well as foreigners with valid Lithuanian permits, will still be allowed to enter Lithuania through Medininkai, BNS reported. The exemption also applies to holders of humanitarian visas.

Passenger trains between Belarus and Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, will not be affected. Russians holding a transit document allowing travel to Kaliningrad can also still cross at Medininkai, according to Lithuanian officials.

Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said the restrictions could be extended. “We cannot fail to respond to a hybrid attack against Lithuania,” she told reporters.

The measure will primarily affect thousands of Belarusian workers who regularly travel between the two countries, but Lithuanian businesses that continue to work with Minsk will also be impacted, Ruginiene said.

‘Mad scam’

Belarus condemned Lithuania’s initial border closure after last week’s balloon incident and called on its neighbour to first look for accomplices within its own borders.

“Lithuanian politicians have decided to exploit the situation and place all the blame on Belarus, thus covering up their own inability (or unwillingness?) to find the smugglers’ contractors” inside Lithuania, said a statement by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“If air balloons loaded with cigarettes are flying there, I guess they need to solve the issue on their end,” added Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, noting that his country would apologise if its involvement is established.

Lithuania, a NATO and EU member on the Western alliance’s eastern flank, views the balloon disruption as a deliberate act of sabotage by Russia-allied Belarus.

Its concern is heightened by repeated drone intrusions into NATO’s airspace, which reached an unprecedented scale last month. Some European officials described the incidents as Moscow testing NATO’s response, which raised questions about how prepared the alliance is against Russia.

In Belgium, Defence Minister Theo Francken said an investigation was under way after “multiple drones were spotted again” overnight Tuesday into Wednesday above a military base in Marche-en-Famenne in the east of the country.

Oct. 27 (UPI) — Lithuania will close its border with Belarus after balloons have continued to breach its airspace, Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said Monday.

She said Lithuania will shoot down any balloons that enter the country.

“We are sending a signal to Belarus that no hybrid attack will be tolerated, and we are taking the strictest measures to stop such attacks,” Ruginienė said. “The armed forces will take all necessary measures, including kinetic measures to shoot down the balloons.”

The balloons are believed to be a tool of smugglers, which bring contraband cigarettes into the country. The border will stay open for EU nationals leaving Belarus and for diplomats.

Lithuania has had to shut down airspace over Vilnius for balloon intrusion at least four times last week and three times over the weekend. There were 170 flights disrupted.

Though the balloons aren’t sent by the government, Lithuania blames Belorussian President Alexander Lukashenko for his lack of action.

“Inaction is also an action,” Ruginienė said after a meeting of the National Security Commission on Monday. “If Belarus does nothing about it and does not fight, we also assess these actions accordingly.”

Lithuania is a member of NATO. Lukashenko is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Sunday night, the National Crisis Management Center said its radar detected 66 objects traveling from Belarus to Lithuania.

Lithuania Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said on X Monday that NATO was facing a “deliberate escalation of hybrid warfare from Russia and its proxy, Belarus,” calling recent airspace incursions, “calculated provocations designed to destabilize, distract and test NATO’s resolve.”

A Russian Sukhoi SU-30 fighter and an IL-78 tanker plane flew a half a mile into Lithuanian territory on Oct. 23, according to the country’s ministry of foreign affairs. It had departed from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which shares borders with Lithuania and Poland.

Ruginienė said her country will push for more sanctions on Belarus at the European Union level. She also wouldn’t rule out invoking Article 4 of NATO, which calls for urgent discussions with allies when a member fears risk to its security.

Move to close Vilnius, Kaunas airports and border comes after helium balloons drifted into the country’s territory.

NATO member Lithuania has closed its two biggest airports and shut crossings on its border with Belarus after helium weather balloons drifted into its territory, the third such incident in the Baltic nation this month.

European aviation has repeatedly been thrown into chaos in recent weeks by drone sightings and other air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and the Baltic region.

The Vilnius and Kaunas airports were closed on Friday for safety reasons until 2am (23:00 GMT), while the Belarus border crossings will remain shut until midday on Sunday, authorities said.

Lithuania has said balloons are sent by smugglers transporting contraband cigarettes, but it also blames Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for not stopping the practice.

“The National Security Commission will meet next week to assess … what can be done short-term that would be painful to the smugglers and to Lukashenko’s regime, which allows them to thrive,” Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said in a statement.

Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre said “tens of balloons” had been detected by radar on Friday.

Vilnius airport also closed on Tuesday of this week and on October 5, when smuggler balloons entered the capital city’s airspace, authorities said.

The incident comes after two Russian military aircraft briefly entered Lithuania’s airspace in what appeared to be a new provocation from Moscow.

Lithuania’s armed forces said in a statement that the two aircraft may have been conducting refuelling exercises in the neighbouring Russian exclave of Kaliningrad when they flew 700 metres (0.43 miles) into the country at 6pm local time (15:00 GMT) on Thursday.

“This is a blatant breach of international law and territorial integrity of Lithuania,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on X in response to that incursion, adding that his country would summon Russian embassy representatives to protest against reckless and dangerous behaviour.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence, however, denied the incursion had taken place.

It said the flights were conducted “in strict compliance” with rules and “did not deviate from their route and did not violate the borders of other states”.

Russian aircraft and drones have reportedly also violated airspace in Estonia and Poland in recent weeks.

The events have heightened anxiety that Russia’s Putin might be testing NATO’s defensive reflexes.