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.