According to Reuters and Lithuania's National Radio, on the evening of October 25, Lithuania had to close the capital Vilnius Airport again because helium balloons broke into its airspace, as well as the two major border crossing points of Medininkai and Sharcinininkai bordering Belarus.
This is the third time this week and the fifth this month that the country has taken emergency measures due to similar incidents.
Vermantas Vitkauskas, director of the National Crisis Management Center of Lithuania, said that radar detected dozens of balloons launched in coordination from multiple locations in Belarus, some flying directly towards the airspace of Vilnius Airport. This scared them a lot, after all, it posed a serious threat to aviation safety.
Therefore, the authorities quickly suspended airport operations, from the evening of 25th to 2am on 26th, during which about 30 flights were cancelled or changed, nearly 4,000 passengers were stranded, and the border crossings were closed simultaneously until 9am on 26th.
In fact, this is not the first time a balloon has been invaded.On October 5, 25 balloons broke into the airport, causing the airport to shut down for hours, the authorities seized 7 balloons and captured 12,000 packages of smuggled cigarettes.
During the balloon invasion on October 21, law enforcement officers detained four suspects and seized more than 18,000 packs of contraband tobacco.
Official data in Lithuania show that last year they recorded a total of 966 balloon invasions, more than 500 so far this year, and more than 100 similar cases in neighbouring Poland during the same period.
The Lithuanian government, on the other hand, has pointed its head directly to the Belarusian President Lukashenko regime, saying that they tolerate smuggling.
Prime Minister Ingaruginene said on the 24th that the National Security Council will assess the situation next week and study short-term measures to combat smuggling and counter Belarus.
Her chief national security adviser, Deividas Matulionis, said it could be “a long-term full closure of the border” if the incident continues.
However, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry responded earlier that the closure of the border was “politically motivated” to create barriers to citizens crossing the border.
The case has also sparked a strong backlash in Lithuania, with the opposition party “For Lithuania” chairman Skvernelis criticizing the government’s failure to cope, saying the country is about to become a “paralyzed country”, which is a minor damage to the tourism and investment environment.
MEP Zarimas also directly pointed to the transport sector "only propaganda, lack of effectiveness", and the chairman of the transport association Laurinetis also publicly questioned the rationality of the policy, believing that air incidents should not be overly involved in the transport industry.
Let's look at the general environment of European aviation safety. In recent weeks, airports in Copenhagen, Munich and other places have been frequently shut down due to drone intrusions, and the Baltic Sea region has become the hardest hit area for air safety.
The border confrontation between Lithuania and Belarus has been going on for several years. Since 2023, Lithuania has closed four border ports, and now these two are still open. As a result, once the balloon crisis comes, I'm afraid it will have to happen again. Bilateral conflicts have further intensified.
In fact, not only Lithuania and Belarus have balloons, but also Russia and Ukraine are not idle. According to Reference News Network, in the latest night attack against Russia, the Ukrainian armed forces used balloons on a large scale.
Russian Defense Ministry sources said the Russian air defense forces shot down 69 Ukrainian drones overnight, many of which were balloons.
Some of these balloons are used to collect intelligence, some can even carry bombs, destroy strategic facilities, the Russian military will use balloons, but they are used to create fake targets and mislead the Ukrainian air defense forces.
You may still remember that the French "Rafale" fighter shot down a high-altitude balloon before. On June 24th this year, French Defense Minister Sebastian Lekonu made a high-profile announcement on social media that the "Rafale" fighter had completed the shooting down test of extremely high-altitude stratospheric balloon.
This matter also attracted a lot of attention at that time. After all, high-altitude balloons look simple, but it is not easy to shoot them down.
Speaking of the relations between Lithuania and China, we all know that Lithuania has done too much before, openly violating the one-China principle, allowing the Taiwan authorities to set up the so-called "Taiwan delegation in Lithuania", which can disturb us and directly reduce the diplomatic relations between the two countries to the official level.
In May this year, the last Chinese diplomat was also “pulled out” by Lithuania because they deliberately stunned that the Chinese diplomat’s documents had expired, but in fact they had long stopped issuing new authentication information to Chinese diplomats.
Later, however, Lithuania may have suffered painful economic losses, and Prime Minister Paluckas submitted a proposal to China to rebuild bilateral relations, acknowledging that the previous behavior was a major diplomatic mistake, but the new foreign minister said to share the experience of dealing with China's "coercion policy" to other countries, this attitude is a bit mind-blowing.
This series of events is truly blurring, with NATO battles with balloons, balloons in Belarus and Lithuania, as well as European aviation security issues, and Lithuania’s diplomatic performance, all reflecting the complexity and variation of the current international situation.
However, we still hope that all countries can solve problems through peace and dialogue. After all, wars and conflicts will only bring suffering and losses to people.
I also hope that Lithuania can recognize the situation as soon as possible, make the right choice, and stop being used by others.