Vilnius airport closed after cigarette-smuggling balloons spotted

Lithuania closed Vilnius airport overnight after dozens of cigarette-smuggling balloons entered its airspace, the country’s National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) has said.

The disruption, which lasted from 10:30 pm on Tuesday until 6:30 am on Wednesday, led to the cancellation of 30 flights and stranded approximately 4,000 passengers, according to the airport.

Incoming flights had to be redirected to other destinations, including Warsaw and Lithuania’s Kaunas airport.

“Operations have been disrupted due to weather balloons used to smuggle cigarettes from Belarus,” the NCMC said in a statement.

The centre added that the country’s border with Belarus was also closed after the balloon sightings.

At a press conference on Wednesday morning, Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė, who blamed Belarus for the incident, said she would convene a meeting of the National Security Committee at 1:30 pm to discuss the issue.

“This morning I already demanded that everyone come with concrete solutions. We must discuss this situation immediately and we must find — not debate, but find — what to do,” Ruginienė said.

“I would very much like Belarus to take responsibility for these incidents,“ the prime minister added.

The NCMC said an investigation had been launched, noting that the balloons were not launched from a single place.

It is not the first incident of its kind, with Vilnius airport also forced to shut for hours on 5 October because of cigarette-smuggling balloons.

Lithuanian authorities said at the time that they had found at least 11 balloons carrying 18,000 packs of black-market cigarettes.

Vilnius airport's closure came after a challenging few months for European aviation, which has been heavily disrupted as a result of drone sightings at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and the Baltic region.

The EU has accused Russia of engaging in disruptive hybrid warfare, which Moscow continues to deny.