October 29, Pozirk. Lithuania has detained four people in connection with a recent influx of balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes from Belarus, the Baltic country’s Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė, said.
LRT quoted her as saying that the detainees were taken into custody for two months.
Grunskienė said that 21 pre-trial investigations were launched into the use of balloons for transporting contraband cigarettes this year, and 50 suspects were identified.
Officials documented more than 500 incidents of cigarette smuggling by weather balloons in the first nine months of 2025, she added.
According to her, 16 cases were referred to court, and 12 have already been tried. Eighteen people have been found guilty and ordered to pay fines totaling more than €111,000.
Judges have sentenced several people to a year and five months in prison, the top prosecutor said.
“We clearly have results. And when it comes to statistics, seized cigarette packs … in nine months totaled more than 730,000. The total value of the discovered and seized cigarettes is €3.553 million,” she said.
Grunskienė noted that the Lithuanian Criminal Code doesn’t define “hybrid warfare,” which, however, does not mean that officials are not collecting evidence. Vilnius is following several leads to prove that the smuggling is an “organized activity.”
Incursions by cigarette-smuggling balloons from Belarus constitute elements of hybrid attacks on Lithuania and aim to destabilize the country, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda told journalists a day earlier.
The president’s comments came hours after the Belarusian ruler dismissed Lithuania’s accusations as absurd.
In Belarus, organizing large-scale balloon launches to a neighboring country without the authorities’ knowledge is impossible, Nausėda argued.
“It is therefore quite obvious that special services — the Committee of State Security (KGB) — are involved in the sale of tobacco products, some of which are official and some destined for the illegal market, generating substantial profits from each smuggled pack of cigarettes,” the president said.
About a quarter of cigarettes sold in Lithuania are contraband, with smugglers earning up to €4 per pack, he said, accusing Minsk of promoting these practices to support and finance Łukašenka’s regime.
“We will definitely not tolerate the launch of balloons, and the Lithuanian military is ready to shoot them down,” Nausėda noted.
Yesterday, Vilnius closed the border crossings in Medininkai and Šalčininkai — the only two checkpoints still handling all cross-border traffic between Lithuania and Belarus — citing an influx of cigarette-smuggling balloons. In 2023, Lithuania closed the Šumskas and Tverečius crossings, followed by Lavoriškės and Raigardas in 2024, over national security and smuggling concerns.
Łukašenka denounced Lithuania’s closure of border checkpoints as “a crazy gamble.” He advised Lithuania to deal with the issue domestically: “If small balloons carrying cigarettes or something else are flying there, I believe the problem should be solved within their territory. Because they don’t just fly to nowhere. Someone receives them, and someone profits. They need to identify and root out these schemes.”
Cigarette smuggling remains a lucrative illegal trade: while legally sold cigarettes are of higher quality, they cost three to four times more in Lithuania than those produced in Belarus.
