Lithuania may block Kaliningrad transit over Belarusian balloons

Due to the threat posed by smuggled balloons from Belarus, the president proposes limiting transit to Kaliningrad and closing the border with Belarus for an extended period.

"President is considering recent incidents and airport disruptions as a hybrid attack against Lithuania, which requires both symmetric and asymmetric responses," BNS reported from the presidential office on Sunday.

According to BNS, the government is expected to propose measures in the coming days.

"Among the options to be considered are a long-term closure of the border with Belarus and restrictions on transit to Kaliningrad," the statement said.

On Tuesday, the head of state will convene an interagency meeting on these issues. BNS reported that on Friday and Saturday, Vilnius Airport operations were disrupted for two consecutive days due to smuggled balloons from Belarus, and on one of those days, issues also occurred at Kaunas Airport.

Overall, air traffic was disrupted three times this week due to smuggled balloons.

In response to these incidents, Lithuania has temporarily closed the border with Belarus several times.

Notably, on October 25, Lithuania temporarily closed two border checkpoints with Belarus.

The decision followed the suspension of operations at Vilnius and Kaunas airports due to the appearance of balloons in the airspace coming from Belarus.

According to the National Crisis Management Center, dozens of navigation points were recorded — mostly meteorological balloons — moving in the direction of Druskininkai–Šalčininkai.

It is noteworthy that this is not the first such case of flying objects near Vilnius Airport, which led to its temporary closure.

Vilnius Airport was also closed on October 5 due to a similar incident involving helium balloons carrying smuggled cigarettes from Belarus.