Vilnius airport shut after cigarette-smuggling balloons enter Lithuania's airspace

Vilnius, Oct 22 Vilnius airport in Lithuania was shut overnight after dozens of cigarette-smuggling balloons were sighted in its airspace, according to the country's National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC).

The operations at the airport were disrupted from 10:30 pm on Tuesday to 6:30 am on Wednesday, resulting in the cancellation of 30 flights and stranding 4,000 passengers, according to the airport, Euro News reported.

Flights scheduled for arrival at the airport were redirected to other locations, including Warsaw and Lithuania's Kaunas airport.

In a statement, the NCMC stated, "Operations have been disrupted due to weather balloons used to smuggle cigarettes from Belarus." The centre further said that Lithuania's border with Belarus was shut after the balloons were spotted.

While addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene blamed Belarus for the incident and said she would hold a meeting of the National Security Committee at 1:30 pm to discuss the issue.

Ruginiene said, "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."

"I would very much like Belarus to take responsibility for these incidents," she added.

The NCMC said an investigation has started into the incident and said that balloons were not launched from a single place.

It is not the first time that Vilnius airport has been shut. Earlier on October 5, Vilnius airport was closed due to cigarette-smuggling balloons.

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

The Vilnius airport closure comes after airports in Copenhagen, Munich and other European nations were shut due to drone sightings. The EU has accused Russia of being involved in disruptive hybrid warfare, which Moscow continues to reject.

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