{"id":518741,"date":"2026-02-18T17:05:43","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=518741"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:10:11","slug":"lithuania-submits-evidence-of-weather-balloon-incidents-to-icao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/lithuania-submits-evidence-of-weather-balloon-incidents-to-icao","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania Submits Evidence of Weather Balloon Incidents to ICAO"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lithuania has officially submitted a package of evidence to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regarding incidents involving the launch of smuggled weather balloons from the territory of Belarus. Prime Minister Inga Ruginien\u0117<\/b> announced this at a press conference on Wednesday, LRT reported, citing BNS.<\/p>\n

\u201cLithuania has officially approached the International Civil Aviation Organization, providing the evidence it has collected of airspace violations committed from the territory of Belarus,\u201d<\/i> she said. \u201cThese are not isolated cases; we are talking about repeated actions that affect our civil aviation and pose a threat to the safety of international flights.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Lithuania expects a \u201cclear international assessment and a principled response\u201d from the organization.<\/p>\n

Transport Minister Juras Taminskas<\/b> noted that Vilnius sees signs that these actions are being recognised as a hybrid attack. In his view, an ICAO decision could have serious consequences for Minsk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would be a serious political blow to a regime that is trying to return to the international arena, to cooperate, to demonstrate openness, because Minsk is very reluctant and avoids recognising the fact of a violation of international civil aviation law by ICAO,\u201d<\/i> he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis also significantly contributes to the fact that if additional sanctions are considered in the future, such materials and ICAO\u2019s recognition of a violation of international civil aviation law could lead to the Minsk regime facing substantial sanctions,\u201d<\/i> the minister added.<\/p>\n

Taminskas said he had approached ICAO in October last year, but at that time the organization noted that consideration of such incidents requires the submission of specific evidence.<\/p>\n

According to the minister, it is still difficult to say how long ICAO\u2019s assessment will take, but it usually takes about a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will depend on how long the hybrid attack on Lithuania continues; we will continue to add data. (\u2026) In practice, one can usually say that the process takes up to a year, because ICAO will contact Belarus to provide its explanations; this is an entire legal mechanism that can neither be accelerated nor slowed down,\u201d<\/i> he said.<\/p>\n

Since last autumn, services have checked about 50,000 people and 38,000 vehicles, seized around 100 balloons and discovered 234,000 packs of cigarettes, he said.<\/p>\n

According to the Ministry of Transport, at least 16 airspace violations have been recorded since October last year, affecting the interests of more than 53,000 passengers and leading to the cancellation or delay of more than 370 flights. Total damage from these incidents has already exceeded 2.3 million euros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lithuania has officially submitted a package of evidence to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) regarding incidents involving the launch of smuggled weather balloons from the territory of Belarus. Prime Minister Inga Ruginien\u0117 announced this at a press conference on Wednesday, LRT reported, citing BNS. \u201cLithuania has officially approached the International Civil Aviation Organization, providing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":497672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6995e469dda04.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Lithuania Submits Evidence of Weather Balloon Incidents to ICAO"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}