STOCKHOLM, May 13 (Reuters) – Lithuania’s capital airport said on Wednesday it briefly halted operations overnight following the detection of what was believed to be smuggler balloons from Belarus drifting into its airspace.
Vilnius Airport said on Facebook the airspace was closed for an hour, one of over a dozen such incidents since October of last year.
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Lithuania says smugglers use weather balloons to transport cigarettes across the border, and have also blamed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for not stopping the practice.
Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, editing by Terje Solsvik
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