Lithuania has threatened to restrict movement at border crossing points on the Belarusian border and take other measures to protect its airspace and national security.
Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry issued a strong protest to Belarus on April 10 over the launch of weather balloons on April 9. The balloons violated Lithuanian airspace and posed a threat to civil aviation.
“As a result of the incident, the airspace over Vilnius Airport was restricted for more than seven hours”, Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said.
The Lithuanian side also pointed to an increase in organized irregular migration flows from Belarus. Since the beginning of the year, Lithuanian services have already prevented 347 attempts to illegally cross the country’s state border.
“Lithuania demanded that Belarus immediately take measures to stop the systematic violations of its airspace and land border. Lithuania also warned that if these illegal actions continue, it reserves the right to once again impose restrictions on movement through border checkpoints and apply additional measures to protect its airspace, civil aviation and national security”, Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said.
It should be recalled that due to weather balloons arriving from Belarus, Vilnius Airport was closed for several hours overnight from April 9 to 10. Lithuanian services recorded 20 radar signals characteristic of balloons.
In October-November 2025, Lithuania closed the Belarusian border for several weeks. Border crossings were allowed only for certain categories of citizens. In response, the Belarusian authorities banned trucks with Lithuanian license plates from leaving Belarus and sent them to paid special parking lots. The release of the trucks was only allowed at the end of March 2026.