Lithuania threatens to close border over balloons, migrants from Belarus

April 10, Pozirk. Lithuania’s foreign ministry has issued a statement expressing indignation at an influx of balloon incursions and irregular migrants from Belarus and threatening to suspend the operation of its checkpoints at the Belarusian border.

The ministry says that its statement is a response to the launch of smuggling balloons from Belarus on April 9 that “jeopardized civil aviation.”  As a result of the incident, air traffic restrictions were in place at Vilnius International Airport for more than seven hours.

The ministry also points out that Lithuania has already thwarted 347 attempts by irregular third-country migrants to cross its border from Belarus since the beginning of this year.

Vilnius demands that Minsk take immediate measures to “stop systematic violations of its airspace and land border,” the statement says.

Lithuania warns that if “these illegal actions persist,” it reserves the right to “reintroduce restrictions on movement through border crossings and take additional measures to defend its airspace, civil aviation and national security.”

Vilnius International Airport suspended operations overnight and in the early hours of April 10 after detecting navigation markers that looked like weather balloons launched by cigarette smugglers from Belarus.

In a Facebook post, the airport described the incident, the eighth since the year’s start, as a “hybrid attack by Belarus.” Air traffic restrictions were in effect from 10:30 pm on April 9 until 5:15 am on April 10.

Tensions between Belarus and Lithuania over cigarette-smuggling balloons have been rising since October 2025. Lithuanian authorities closed the border with Belarus on 29 October 2025, reopening it on November 20, and have repeatedly suspended operations at Vilnius Airport, located 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border.

Last December, Vilnius declared an “extreme situation,” a low-level emergency, in response to incursions, which it described as “a hybrid attack from Belarus.”

Alaksandar Lukašenka, however, played down Vilnius’s concerns on March 20, claiming that weather balloons could not affect airport operations.

But he told state media journalists that police had arrested five persons suspected of involvement in smuggling cigarettes by air.

The remarks came a day after Łukašenka held talks with John Coale, US special envoy for Belarus who negotiated the release of 250 imprisoned Belarusian dissidents and raised Lithuania’s concerns over cigarette smuggling.

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