{"id":441573,"date":"2025-12-09T18:25:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/12\/09\/la-lituania-dichiara-lemergenza-per-le-incursioni-dei-palloni-aerostatici\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T18:40:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:40:26","slug":"lithuania-declares-emergency-due-to-balloon-incursions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/12\/09\/lithuania-declares-emergency-due-to-balloon-incursions\/","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania declares “emergency” due to balloon incursions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Lithuania has declared a “state of<\/strong> emergency<\/strong>” amid the uncontrolled influx of balloons from Belarus. In recent weeks, Lithuania’s two largest airports, Vilnius and Kaunas,<\/strong> have been forced to halt operations on several occasions due to the presence of these aircraft. For Vilnius, the overflight of balloons in national airspace is a “hybrid attack<\/strong>“<\/span> disguised as cigarette smuggling.<\/p>\n

\n

BREAKING:<\/p>\n

Lithuania declares a nation-wide state of emergency due to the balloon intrusions from Belarus which repeatedly force Vilnius Airport to shut down operations. pic.twitter.com\/30s2ZVZIu1<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Visegr\u00e1d 24 (@visegrad24) December 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“All institutions are joining forces to deal with the threat posed by balloons launched by smugglers<\/strong>, Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene<\/strong> said in a note. In fact, balloons have long been used on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border for the illegal trade in cigarettes and prohibited materials<\/strong>. The above-average influx, however, raises the suspicion that this is not an exchange between criminal organisations from the two states, but real operations aimed at destabilising the small Baltic Republic<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

The doubt had already come to Deividas Matulionis<\/strong>, Lithuania’s chief national security adviser, in October, who at the time stated<\/a>: “It is becoming increasingly clear that this is no ordinary smuggling. Smuggling is being used as a cover for what is actually a hybrid psychological operation<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

The technical characteristics of these balloons are dangerous. They fly at low altitude,<\/strong> making interception very difficult. In addition, their speed is around 100-200 kilometres per hour,<\/strong> making them lethal<\/strong> in the event of contact<\/strong> with an airliner.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to limit the phenomenon, Vilnius has closed its border crossings<\/b><\/a>. The Parliament made the decision at the end of October, but the raids continued in November. Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovic<\/strong> today gave the green light for the military to inspect, together with the police, the border with Belarus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, Vilnius and Kaunas airports have been closed due to the overflight of these aircraft. For Vilnius, the violation of airspace is a “hybrid attack”, disguised as cigarette smuggling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7891,"featured_media":441556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25712,25707],"tags":[32764,32765,27853,32449],"class_list":["post-441573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-world-politics","tag-attacco-ibrido","tag-incursioni-allo-spazio-aereo","tag-lithuania-en","tag-palloni-aerostatici"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441574,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441573\/revisions\/441574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}