The Lithuanian Armed Forces described as insignificant an incident in which a balloon carrying smuggled cigarettes landed at the stadium of a battalion in the southern town of Alytus on Tuesday.
A similar incident was recorded at Vilnius Airport late on Saturday.
According to the Armed Forces, the balloon with contraband cigarettes landed at the stadium of the Grand Duchess Birutė Uhlan Battalion just before midnight. The military police inspected and removed the find.
“From a military perspective, this incident is not significant in itself – military unit security sometimes encounters and intercepts various violations, detains individuals taking photos, and occasionally someone climbs over the fence attempting to enter without permission,” the Armed Forces wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
They explained that they follow the Statute on the Use of Military Force, which bars them from firing at a descending balloon when there is no clearly identified threat.
The military emphasised that, based on intelligence assessments, the level of threat to the country remains unchanged and the alert level is “normal”, adding that such a balloon in peacetime, without a change in the threat level, “is in no way an air defence subject”.
“Even with the active use of air defence measures, the principle of proportionality is observed – no one will fire missiles costing tens of thousands of euros at a balloon that can cause only minor damage and can do so only theoretically,” the military said.
A weather balloon carrying smuggled cigarettes, suspected of having come from Belarus, fell within Vilnius Airport’s airfield late on Saturday.
Rustamas Liubajevas, the commander of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (VSAT), said earlier this week that border guards do not have the necessary weapons nor the legal authority to shoot down objects that illegally cross the Lithuanian border by air. However, the Interior Ministry has promised to grant such authorisation.
For their part, the Armed Forces say they monitor such balloons on radar but do not comment on their tracking within Lithuanian airspace.
The VSAT says it has recorded around 250 incidents involving such balloons in the past month.
Further reading
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
