Lithuania Declares Closing Border with Belarus
(MENAFN) On Monday, Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene announced plans to indefinitely close the country’s border with Belarus and take immediate action against any balloons violating its airspace.
This decision comes after four balloon-related incidents in the span of just one week.
During a meeting of the National Security Commission, Ruginiene presented "a clear algorithm" for the government's future responses.
This follows repeated disruptions at Vilnius Airport, which was forced to suspend operations four times in just seven days due to balloon sightings.
Ruginiene confirmed that the government has prepared a measure to close the border with Belarus indefinitely, though certain exceptions will be allowed, as reported by a news agency.
"This means that diplomats and diplomatic mail will be able to move, and our and EU citizens will also be able to enter us from Belarus, but all other movement will be closed. This is how we send a signal to Belarus and say that no hybrid attack will be tolerated here, we will take all the strictest measures to stop such attacks," she stated.
In addition to the border closure, the Prime Minister mentioned that the military would take all necessary steps to intercept and neutralize the balloons using "kinetic means" to shoot them down.
Ruginiene further explained that Lithuania would coordinate additional sanctions against Belarus with the European Union.
"This will be done soon. We are also actively consulting and communicating with our allies and our neighbors Poland and Latvia. Any of our actions are also coordinated with them, we are not a separate state, we are part of NATO and the EU. We coordinate everything we do with them," she added.
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