VILNIUS: Lithuania’s Prime Minister announced on Friday that the country will declare a national “emergency situation” over the influx of smuggler’s balloons launched from Belarus.
“We are currently preparing the legal basis and documents,” Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene told reporters, calling the emergency declaration “the best course of action at this time.”
The ‘emergency situation’ enables the government and local authorities to dedicate extra resources to combatting the balloons.
“We do not rule out going further,” Ruginiene added. Declaring a state of emergency is a possible stronger step.
As a result of balloon incursions, Lithuania’s two largest airports, in Vilnius and Kaunas, have on several occasions been forced to halt operations.
Lithuanian officials claim that the balloons, which fly up to 10 kilometers (six miles) high, are deliberately being launched into the airport’s flight paths, and constitute an attack on its civil aviation.
Though the balloons, which contain cigarettes, have long been used by smugglers, they have only in the last few months prompted airport closures.
The Baltic state, a member of NATO and the European Union, has long accused Belarus, a close ally of Putin’s Russia, of organizing “hybrid warfare.”
The activity, which amplified in October, caused Lithuania to close its two border crossings with Belarus at the end of the month.
Belarus then prevented Lithuanian trucks from driving on its roads and barred them from leaving the country without first paying a fee, which Vilnius decried as “being held hostage” by Belarus.
Thousands of Lithuanian lorries remain stuck in Belarus, with Minsk calling for consultations with the Lithuanian foreign ministry.
Lithuania has instead called for harsher sanctions on Belarus.
Lithuania to declare ‘emergency situation’ over Belarus balloons: PM
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Lithuania to declare ‘emergency situation’ over Belarus balloons: PM
- “We are currently preparing the legal basis and documents,” Ruginiene told reporters
- “We do not rule out going further,” Ruginiene added. Declaring a state of emergency is a possible stronger step
Russia hits Ukraine with drones, missiles, kills at least 10 in Kharkiv
- Zelensky said that Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles targeting the energy sector and railway infrastructure
- “There should be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life“
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Saturday, damaging infrastructure and killing at least 10 people, including two children, in the northeast city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles targeting the energy sector and railway infrastructure across the country.
“There should be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life,” Zelensky said on the Telegram app.
“Russia has not abandoned its attempts to destroy Ukraine’s residential and critical infrastructure, and therefore support should continue,” Zelensky said, urging partners to continue air defense and weapons supplies.
Ukrainian air defense units shot down 453 drones and 19 missiles, the air force said. But nine missiles and 26 attack drones hit 22 sites, it said.
BALLISTIC MISSILE SLAMS INTO RESIDENTIAL BUILDING
The city of Kharkiv was targeted by both Russian drones and missiles, and 10 people, including two children, were killed after a Russian ballistic missile slammed into a five-story residential building, Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
“When we arrived here 20 minutes after the explosion, I thought I was going to have a stroke. I couldn’t string two words together, and my legs were buckling,” Hanna, a resident of the destroyed building, told Reuters.
“It’s good that I wasn’t there with my child and that my father was with me. It was ordinary people who lived there. What were they targeting?“
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces carried out massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial complexes, military airfields and energy facilities, the Interfax news agency reported.
In Kharkiv, 15 people were also wounded, and 19 residential buildings were damaged by the Russian attacks, Syniehubov said.
Commercial and administrative buildings, electricity distribution lines, and cars were also hit, he said.
In Kyiv, three people were injured, and the heating was knocked out in 2,806 residential apartment buildings in four districts across the capital after Russian strikes hit an energy infrastructure facility, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
National grid operator Ukrenergo said that emergency power cuts were introduced in seven regions following the Russian attacks.
Ukrainian officials said that Russia also attacked four railway stations and other railway infrastructure in central Ukraine and port infrastructure in the southern Odesa region, setting on fire containers with vegetable oil and damaging a grain warehouse.
