Minsk (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko criticised Lithuania’s closure of the border with Belarus as a “crazy scam” and blamed Vilnius for waging a hybrid warfare that risked the Chinese economy, as Lithuania announced to start shooting down smuggler balloons crossing the border from Belarus.
As reported by the Belarusian state news agency BELTA, Lukashenko said that Lithuania had “come up with an absurd excuse, these balloons, even for a small country like Lithuania.” He also stated that the deployment of Russia’s Oreshnik missile system in Belarus is not an aggressive action and is aimed at ensuring security.
Why did Lithuania decide to close its border with Belarus?
A day earlier, Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene announced that her nation will begin to shoot down smuggler balloons crossing the border from Belarus, which have repeatedly disrupted the Baltic country’s air traffic.
Autocrats are once again testing the resilience of EU and NATO against hybrid threats.
— Inga Ruginienė (@IRuginiene) October 27, 2025
In recent days, dozens of helium balloons from Belarus have entered our airspace – drifting toward major airports and disrupting civil aviation.
This calls for a united, resolute response:…
She reaffirmed that the government has already prepared a decision to close the border with Belarus indefinitely, with certain exceptions. “Today, we have decided to take the strictest measures. There is no other way,” Ruginiene said.
“This means that diplomats and diplomatic mail will be able to move, and our and EU citizens will also be able to enter us from Belarus, but all other movement will be closed. This is how we send a signal to Belarus and say that no hybrid attack will be tolerated here, we will take all the strictest measures to stop such attacks,” she said.
“This will be done soon. We are also actively consulting and communicating with our allies and our neighbors Poland and Latvia. Any of our actions are also coordinated with them, we are not a separate state, we are part of NATO and the EU. We coordinate everything we do with them,” Ruginiene also said.
What disruptions have the smuggler balloons caused recently?
After balloons entered Lithuania’s airspace, the Vilnius Airport was temporarily closed four times last week, and each time, Lithuania’s border crossings to Belarus were also temporarily closed as a precaution due to the incident, Reuters reported. Traffic at the airport was suspended, and the Belarus border was closed until the meeting of Lithuania’s National Security Commission on Monday.
The Vilnius airport also closed on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday of this week, on each of those occasions due to balloons entering Vilnius airspace, including the October 5 incident.
