Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 3, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
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Vilnius airport in Lithuania closed again due to balloons in its airspace, linked to smuggling from Belarus. This marks over 10 closures since October.
VILNIUS, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Lithuania's Vilnius airport suspended flights for a second time on Wednesday due to suspected balloons in its airspace, the operator said in a statement, the latest in a string of such incidents in recent months.
Lithuania says balloons are sent by smugglers transporting cigarettes from Belarus, but also blames Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for not stopping what it calls a form of "hybrid attack".
Lukashenko has accused the West of fighting a hybrid war against Belarus and Russia.
The Vilnius airport, located some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Belarus, has been closed more than 10 times since early October as a result of similar incidents.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas; writing by Simon Johnson; editing by Gareth Jones, Leslie Adler and Terje Solsvik)
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