“Lithuania said that the night of November 24 became “the most tense” this month due to a massive airstrike of balloons from Belarus, due to which the Vilnius airport stopped working; some weather probes were recorded in neighboring Latvia.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Contraband bullets from Belarus. Photo by lrt.lt Source: “European Truth” with reference to LRT
Direct speech of the head of the National Crisis Management Center (NKVC), Vilmantas Vitkauskas: “We had probably the most intense night of the whole of November, as the launch of weather balloons started around 17:00 (November 23, – ed.) from Belarus and continued until 02:00 (November 24, – ed.).”
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Details: NKVC noted that 13 flights were canceled due to weather probes at the Vilnius airport, and another 6 were diverted to Kaunas.
“More than a thousand passengers had to be transported from Kaunas to Vilnius and vice versa. Some passengers who were supposed to depart from Vilnius were transported to Kaunas and were able to continue their journey from there,” Vitkauskas clarified.
He also added that over the past 24 hours, more than 40 balloons have been spotted in Latvian airspace.
“It is also important to note that this attack probably spread over a wider geographical area, and according to our information, our Latvian neighbors also received more than 30 signals on their radars,” Vitkauskas said, adding that now Belarus’ actions are not only a national problem, but also a regional one.
According to him, decisions on the region’s reaction should be made on November 24.
As of Monday morning, 6 balloons have already been found, the search is ongoing.
Prehistory:
- In recent weeks, Lithuania has been suffering from an invasion of weather probes launched from the territory of Belarus. In this regard, the Lithuanian government decided to close the checkpoints on the border with Belarus.
- However, on November 19, the Lithuanian government decided to open them earlier than planned. Operations at the Medininkai and Shalchininkai checkpoints resumed at midnight on November 20.
- On the evening of November 20, balloons from Belarus forced Vilnius Airport to shut down for over an hour, affecting 10 flights and over 1,100 passengers. Among the delayed flights was the flight of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Kästutis Budris and the European Commissioner Andryus Kubilius.