The international airports in Lithuania’s Vilnius and Kaunas were closed on Friday night for overflights of meteorological balloons from Belarus. This was reported by the Lithuanian Ministry of Transport, TASR writes, according to a Reuters report.
Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center (NCMC) said radars had picked up “dozens of balloons”. The Department of Transport stated in a statement that air traffic at both airports therefore stopped until at least 10 p.m. local time (9 p.m. CET).
**Incidents with balloons**
The airport in Vilnius was also closed on Tuesday, October 21 and on Sunday, October 5, because balloons of smugglers with cigarettes from Belarus flew into the airspace of the capital. Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiené said on Wednesday that her country will close its borders with Belarus if a similar case is repeated.
Airspace violations
The Reuters agency reminds that the airspace over the European members of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) has been repeatedly violated by unknown drones or Russian military aircraft in recent weeks. Similar problems were reported by the Scandinavian countries, Germany, the Baltic states, Romania and Poland.
