Vilnius airport suspends operations over cigarette-smuggling balloons from Belarus
June 8, Pozirk. Vilnius International Airport suspended operations for nearly three hours early this morning due to a “hybrid attack from Belarus,” after detecting navigation markers that looked like weather balloons.
Cigarette smugglers from Belarus use these balloons to transport illicit goods across the border.
Restrictions affected several flights, with passengers advised to contact their service providers.
This marks the tenth disruption to airport operations caused by balloon-related incidents this year. The most recent incident dates back to May 13.
Tensions between Belarus and Lithuania over cigarette-smuggling balloons have been rising since mid-October, forcing Lithuanian authorities to close the border and suspend operations at Vilnius International Airport, located close to the Belarusian border.
Vilnius declared an “extreme situation,” a low-level emergency, on December 9 in response to what it called “a hybrid attack from Belarus.”
Alaksandar Lukašenka, however, played down Vilnius’s concerns in mid-March, claiming that weather balloons could not affect airport operations. He also 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.
Vilnius has repeatedly tied any potential engagement with Minsk to a halt in the ongoing balloon incursions, among other conditions.
Lithuanian police chief says no contact with Belarusian law enforcers on smuggling
June 5, Pozirk. Lithuanian police are not in contact with Belarusian law enforcement agencies regarding cigarette smuggling, Lithuanian Police Commissioner General Arūnas Paulauskas told LRT yesterday. “The Border Guard Service has been in contact at the technical level,” he noted. …
