Lower Thirds:

0:01	Report by| Sergei Satanovskii
0:36	Vladislavas Kondratovičius | Lithuanian Interior Minister
1:43	Skirmantas Bikelis | Researcher at Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences

Script: 

These balloons aren't meant for kids.

Last weekend they forced a shutdown of Vilnius airport.

30 flights were canceled and 6 thousand passengers were left waiting for hours in the middle of the night.

Lithuanian authorities are certain the balloons came from neighboring Belarus.

These mysterious balloons made many in Europe worry.

For months now, drones believed to be of Russian origin have been violating EU airspace.

But this time, it doesn’t seem to be another act of hybrid aggression from Moscow's closest ally.

00:35
+++SOT+++Vladislavas Kondratovičius - Minister of the Interior
We had a hot weekend — if you can call it that — not because of the air temperature, but because of the wind direction. It turned out that smugglers had started using weather balloons to transport contraband — namely, smuggled cigarettes — into Lithuania.
Weather balloons carrying truckloads of cigarettes are becoming an increasingly popular tool for smugglers.+++

This year alone, Lithuanian officials have reported more than five hundred such balloons - nearly two and a half times last year’s number.

But the balloons came after the first method failed.

And balloons aren’t the only inventive way contraband is making its way from Belarus into the EU.

Here, thousands of cigarette packs are floating from Belarus into Lithuania on makeshift rafts along the Neman and Neris rivers.

And in these photos, border guards have uncovered what seems to be a smuggling tunnel near Lithuania’s southern border.

The reason behind such creativity among smugglers is the unprecedented level of security along the frontier.

01:42
+++ Skirmantas Bikelis +++
Researcher at Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences
Lithuania not only terminated a railroad connection with Belarus but also closed some border crossing points. So, it's nearly the smugglers‘ only way to cross the Belarus border. First, they used some drones, but our border guards managed to down them. And now nearly 80% of aerial traffic, contraband traffic, is carried by balloons. +++

Lithuania started building this 500-kilometer fence even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The country was trying to protect itself from a massive wave of migrants aided by the Belarusian authorities.

This move was seen as Russia's and Belarus' means of hybrid warfare against the EU.

Now, Lithuania is seeking compensation for the damage at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

It accused Belarus of orchestrating the migrant smuggling.

And while the flow of irregular migrants has stopped, tobacco smuggling into the EU is on the rise - with Belarus as one of the main sources.