{"id":580641,"date":"2026-09-24T10:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T07:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=580641"},"modified":"2026-09-24T11:27:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:27:38","slug":"lithuania-hands-belarus-protest-note-over-weather-balloons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/lithuania-hands-belarus-protest-note-over-weather-balloons","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania Hands Belarus Protest Note Over Weather Balloons"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>On Sept. 23, Lithuania&#8217;s Foreign Ministry handed the charg\u00e9 d&#8217;affaires of Belarus in Lithuania a protest note over the violation of Lithuanian airspace by weather balloons on the night of Sept. 21-22.<\/p>\n<p>Due to the entry of smugglers&#8217; weather balloons, <a href=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/vilnius-airport-suspended-operations-due-to-smugglers-weather-balloons\">Vilnius Airport was forced to suspend operations<\/a> for several hours. A number of flights were canceled.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The ministry stressed that the incident posed a direct threat to the safety of civil aviation. Temporary restrictions on the use of airspace had to be introduced, affecting civil aviation flights and disrupting passengers&#8217; plans.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Lithuania regards this and other similar incidents recorded in recent months as systematic actions of a hybrid nature that pose a threat to national security&#8221;<\/em>, Lithuania&#8217;s Foreign Ministry <a href=\"https:\/\/mfa.lt\/naujienos\/141\/lietuva-iteike-protesto-nota-baltarusijai-del-oro-erdves-pazeidimo-ir-gresmes-civilinei-aviacijai:46506\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Lithuania is demanding that Belarus immediately take measures to stop such violations, ensure control of the state border and airspace, and take action to combat smuggling.<\/p>\n<p>Lithuania reserves the right to take additional measures to ensure the security of its state border, airspace and civil aviation if similar incidents recur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sept. 23, Lithuania&#8217;s Foreign Ministry handed the charg\u00e9 d&#8217;affaires of Belarus in Lithuania a protest note over the violation of Lithuanian airspace by weather balloons on the night of Sept. 21-22. Due to the entry of smugglers&#8217; weather balloons, Vilnius Airport was forced to suspend operations for several hours. A number of flights were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":492740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6ab4defe42c06.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Lithuania Hands Belarus Protest Note Over Weather Balloons"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143284,143090],"tags":[143118,143120],"class_list":["post-580641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-world","category-politics","tag-belarus","tag-meteozondy"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580641","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=580641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580642,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580641\/revisions\/580642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}