Lithuania complains about the strongest weather probe attack in November: airport closed twice

Lithuania said that the night of November 24 was the "most tense" because of the attack by smuggling balloons, which were already spotted in Latvia. Over the past day, Vilnius airport was closed twice due to threats, reported wilmantas Vitkauskas, Head of the National Center for Crisis Management, on LRT Radio.

He stated that the scale of the hybrid attack from Belarus is expanding. More than 40 traces typical of smuggled balloons have been recorded.

"We probably had the busiest night in November, as the weather balloon launches started around 17:00 from Belarus and lasted until 02:00 in the morning. The closure of the airspace was caused by the long scale and intensity of the weather balloon launches," Vitkauskas said.

According to him, the airspace was initially closed for five hours and later extended. Vilnius airport was closed from 18:55 on November 23 to 00:25 on November 24 and from 1:40 to 03:25 on the same day.

As a result, 13 flights from Vilnius Airport were canceled and six were diverted to Kaunas. More than 1,000 passengers had to be transferred between the airports.

It is not yet clear how the weather probes entered Latvian airspace, but this is being investigated. The head of the National Center for the Protection of Civilians said that the threat is beginning to become regional rather than national.

"It's probably also very important to note that this whole attack has probably taken on a wider geographical scope, and as far as we know, our Latvian neighbors have also received more than 30 alerts on their radars," Vitkauskas emphasized.

• on November 17, Lithuania hosted the a large-scale operation against smuggling with balloons. Law enforcement officers detained four people.
• on November 18, it was reported that NATO fighter jets intercepted four times in one week russian aircraft over Europe.