Balloons from Belarus are causing chaos in Lithuania. Is it smugglers, or a hybrid attack?

Whenever the wind blows from Belarus to the northwest, Lithuania faces problems.

At that time, huge white balloons would fly over the border, with boxes of cheap cigarettes hanging below them.

Illegal balloon traffic has forced Lithuania’s main airport to close 15 times in the past 10 weeks, leaving thousands of passengers stranded or delayed.

At one point, the airspace was completely closed for 11 hours.

But the government here is convinced it’s dealing with something more hostile than smugglers.

The report said the balloons had been “weaponized” by an act of hybrid warfare in Belarus, Russia’s closest ally. It comes as Moscow’s own shadow war on Europe escalates again, with officials linking a wave of arson and sabotage attacks to Russian intelligence services.

The Lithuanian government has declared a state of emergency.

Balloons have been used by smugglers before, but there was a sudden surge in numbers in October this year.

“Of course it started as a cross-border organized crime operation, but we have seen more than once how Belarus has used organized crime to influence neighboring countries,” Foreign Minister Kestutis Budris told the BBC in the capital Vilnius.

He said the balloons were launched from a location that would help them best “target” Lithuania’s main airport, which is just 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border.

“If you wanted to conduct a smuggling operation, transporting thousands of packs of cigarettes to the other side, you would do it in the woods or swamps, not directly at our airports!” the minister argued.

Instead, he saw the balloons as a form of political blackmail on Europe’s eastern fringes.

“(Belarus) sees this as leverage: ‘You have a border with us and we can cause huge problems for you,'” Badris said. “What they’re doing does involve military and security areas, and we want to prevent military escalation.”

Military police now patrol the border areas every night. Balloons are most common after dark.

They cross fields to reach remote country roads before setting up mobile checkpoints and stopping vehicles at random. They check drivers’ documents and search car trunks, looking for people who may be involved in smuggling in the hope of dismantling the network.

The balloons fly so high that shooting them down with air defense systems is a safe or economical option, so the government is offering a €1m (£870,000) bonus to any company that can figure out how to intercept them.

Meanwhile, teams use military radar to track the balloons in the sky and try to catch smugglers who appear where the cargo has been dropped.

Soon, new criminal charges will also act as a deterrent – acts that disrupt civil aviation could be punishable by prison terms.

But the best protection right now is to change the direction of the wind.

The night we were out on patrol, the wind was blowing east toward Belarus, and the only boxes the soldiers found in the car were filled with Christmas shopping items rather than contraband.

“I didn’t see the balloon, it doesn’t affect us personally,” the female driver told me after the spot check. “But we live very close to the border and the whole situation does worry us.”

The border itself is now marked by a tall metal fence, with a vicious-looking ring of barbed wire on top and beyond. Below are huge concrete blocks marking the boundary in front of the Belarusian flag and border post.

All these extra security measures are the clearest sign of how Lithuania now views its neighbor and its ally Russia as hostile and dangerous.

Not far away in Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for three decades, dismissed all talk of hybrid war as “nonsense.”

He recently blamed the balloons on “bandit” smugglers, saying they were simply seeking profit and getting creative in overcoming new security fences.

Lithuania does not buy this, partly because Belarus already has prototypes of “hybrid” attacks on the border. In 2021, large numbers of migrants trying to reach the EU were helped to enter Lithuania and Poland, triggering a deliberate crisis.

But there are other signs of government involvement.

In Vilnius, Wilmantas Vitkauskas runs the Crisis Management Center, which brings together various departments of the government and security services.

Previously, smugglers would send balloons in groups to overwhelm opposing security forces, he said. “Now, they launch one or two balloons every 30 minutes, aimed directly at the airport,” he explained in front of a giant digital wall map listing all the balloons discovered so far this year.

“In Lukashenko’s Belarus … if they were interested in stopping it, they could do it tomorrow. But they’re not. That means it’s to their advantage.”

There are suspicions that Belarus is trying to reduce sanctions through bullying.

“They want to attract political attention and force us to change our policy towards Belarus,” Minister Kestutis Budris said of the sudden influx of balloons.

The European Union does not recognize Alexander Lukashenko as president because he jailed his main rivals before a disputed 2020 election and carried out a brutal crackdown after the election. Two years later, when he helped Vladimir Putin launch Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the sanctions in place were further tightened.

“First, they want an end to the regime’s international isolation, and second, of course, sanctions,” the minister argued.

America just Agree to lift some sanctions on Belarus, The country subsequently released 123 prisoners, including prominent opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova.

But Badris advocated a tougher stance against Minsk in Europe. “We must expand the sanctions regime against Belarus to include hybrid activities against the EU,” he said.

“That was done with Russia, but not with Belarus.”

For now, travelers to and from Lithuania, as well as airlines, must adapt.

“This is something completely new to the aviation industry and no airport in Europe has experienced this,” airport chief executive Simonas Butkus said at a shiny new terminal in Vilnius.

One airline has moved its charter flights to Lithuania’s second city, while another has cut evening services to Vilnius.

Mr Butkus estimates that the revenue losses for all affected businesses will amount to €2 million by the end of the year. “One thing is additional cost to us and the airlines, but the higher risk is that passengers start to lose trust in air travel,” he admitted.

Travelers have viewed a new webpage before booking that provides wind forecasts and the likelihood of balloons drifting into their flight paths.

“It’s not easy and it makes me a little nervous. I just want to go home as planned,” said a Polish passenger while waiting in the terminal.

“We’ve been checking every day for the last week,” said Justina, a local woman.

“We believe this is a hybrid attack on us. I think it’s really fun for them to fly these balloons and laugh at us instead of dealing with it.”

Her words suggested that another purpose of hybrid campaign attacks – sowing discontent and political division – is also at play and may be more difficult to defend against.

“They are basically testing the limits of NATO: to see how we can protect against this kind of thing,” said her partner Martinas.

“We couldn’t even fight, like simple balloons. We weren’t even prepared for the basic stuff.”

Additional reporting by Eve Webster