Lithuania has provided the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with additional materials containing evidence of incidents caused by the launch of smuggled balloons from Belarus to Lithuania, the Lithuanian Ministry of Transport and Communications said on 18 May, BNS reports.
“The Ministry of Transport appealed to ICAO and the European Commission back in October last year, as soon as the intensive hybrid attacks started. Now we are taking another step – providing additional evidence of illegal actions of Belarus against Lithuania, which threaten the safety of civil aviation,” said the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Lithuania.
The collected data confirms that balloons launched from the territory of Belarus constantly violate Lithuanian airspace and pose a real threat to civilian aircraft and passengers, the ministry said in a statement.
From October 2025 to May 2026, airspace violations by balloons from Belarus, which led to the suspension of Vilnius airport operations, occurred at least 20 times.
Lithuanian Transport and Communications Minister Jūras Tominskas addressed the ICAO about the smuggled balloons in October last year, but then the organisation noted that during the investigation of such incidents “concrete evidence should be provided”. Lithuania provided them in February 2026. Tominskas said at the time that he saw “signs that it will be recognised that Belarus is carrying out a hybrid attack”.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginenė said at the time that “Lithuania officially addressed the International Civil Aviation Organisation, providing the collected evidence of systematic violations of airspace committed from the territory of Belarus.” The Lithuanian Prime Minister emphasised that these are recurrent rather than isolated incidents, which affect Lithuanian civil aviation and pose a threat to the safety of international aviation. She added that Lithuania expects a clear international assessment and a principled response to this issue.
Last year alone, contraband balloons disrupted the schedule of more than 300 flights at Vilnius Airport, affecting 47,000 passengers and closing the airport for almost 60 hours.
In October 2025, the border with Belarus was temporarily closed because of this (from 29 October to 19 November), and in December the Lithuanian government declared a state of emergency due to a “hybrid attack by Belarus”. Since mid-December, the number of such incidents has decreased, but such violations still continue.
After his visit to Belarus, US presidential spokesman John Cole said that Alexander Lukashenka had promised to stop launching balloons carrying contraband to Lithuania. However, flights of balloons from Belarus to Lithuania continue. Lithuanian politicians regard them as a hybrid attack from Minsk.
Earlier, Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov urged the Lithuanian authorities to maintain “normal working contacts,” “regardless of the situation we have.” He called the smuggling “an ordinary transnational crime” involving Poles and Lithuanians, objecting to its definition as a hybrid attack.
Earlier it became known that 30 criminal cases had been initiated in Lithuania against the background of incidents with smuggled weather probes, launched from Belarus to Lithuania, while 90 people were suspected.
According to estimates of the Lithuanian Airport Company (LTOU), due to the smuggling of Belarusian weather probes, which are the main cause of disruptions at Vilnius airport, the company’s losses for October and November 2025 amounted to about 200 thousand euros.
Lithuania handed over to ICAO new evidence of incidents involving Belarusian balloons near Vilnius