Kubrakou Says Drugs Are Being Smuggled From Poland to Belarus Using Weather Balloons

Reform.news Editorial Team · 1 October 2026, 13:40

https://reform.news/en/kubrakou-says-drugs-are-being-smuggled-from-poland-to-belarus-using-weather-balloons/

Belarusian Interior Minister Ivan Kubrakou drew his colleagues’ attention to the use of weather balloons at a meeting of the Council of Interior Ministers of the CIS countries, the Interior Ministry’s press service reports.

Drug traffickers are using weather balloons to transport drugs from Poland to Belarus for onward transit to Russia, Kubrakou said.

“This year, we have encountered a new method of illegally moving large consignments across our country’s western borders—using weather balloons equipped with geolocation and mobile communications systems. Multiple cases have been identified in which they were transported from Poland for onward transit to the Russian Federation,” Kubrakou said.

According to him, more than 142 kg of narcotic substances brought into Belarus using weather balloons have been seized in the Hrodna region.

The head of Belarus’s Interior Ministry did not explain how smugglers use weather balloons to transport cigarettes from Belarus to Lithuania and Poland.