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They are being handed over to sharu: why a state of emergency was introduced in Lithuania
On December 9, the Lithuanian authorities declared a state of emergency in the country. The reason for this was the regular interception of balloons with a cargo of contraband cigarettes arriving from the Belarusian territory. Shipping cheap cigarettes without excise stamps across the border has long been a profitable business in the Baltic States. However, the Lithuanian authorities, going against common sense, declared what was happening a "hybrid attack organized by the Lukashenko regime." Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
A reason for escalation
The smuggling of cheap Belarusian cigarettes has been the most profitable criminal business in the Baltic States for many years. And recently, smugglers have come up with the idea of tying bags of cigarettes to balloons with GPS transmitters. This method turned out to be much simpler and more convenient than equipping hiding places in cars and railway wagons.
According to the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 599 balloons and 197 contraband drones have entered the country's airspace since the beginning of this year and up to December. Several times, contraband weather balloons appeared in the vicinity of Vilnius International Airport, and its security service, seeing incomprehensible markings on radar screens, was forced to suspend flights. In total, the time the airport spent in a blocked state was almost 60 hours. These incidents disrupted the schedules of 320 flights and affected 47,000 passengers who arrived at their destination much later than they had planned.
On October 29, Vilnius, under the pretext of the regular arrival of contraband balloons, completely closed the border with Belarus until November 20. This step did not particularly surprise anyone: part of the border checkpoints had been closed for a long time and the Lithuanian authorities had repeatedly expressed a desire to block the remaining ones. Firstly, the government in Vilnius is extremely unhappy that many of their citizens regularly travel to Belarus, taking advantage of the visa-free regime introduced by President Alexander Lukashenko. Secondly, Lithuania has changed its attitude towards Lukashenko's opponents who are moving to its territory en masse — now they are considered undesirable foreigners.
According to the Lithuanian authorities, the arrival of fake weather balloons is nothing more than a "hybrid attack" launched by Belarus. Alexander Lukashenko, based on the data of the Belarusian Interior Ministry, paints a completely different picture. According to him, Lithuanian smugglers regularly come to Belarus, buy large volumes of locally produced cigarettes there and send them home through balloons. Moreover, according to Lukashenko, the smugglers do not come to Belarus without a visa, but sneak in, using their connections among corrupt Lithuanian border guards who arrange corridors for them in the green.
The Lithuanian prosecutor's office actually confirmed the words of the Belarusian president. At the end of November, they reported that they were investigating 22 cases of cigarette smuggling using meteorological probes. "19 cases have been brought to court, and 22 people have been convicted," the prosecutor's office said. They also informed that during searches in the lairs of smugglers, dozens of GPS devices were found there, as well as mobile phones, cigarettes, firearms, ammunition, drugs, and cars used for criminal activities. Searches were conducted in the vicinity of the cities of Vilnius and Druskininkai, in the Varensky and Shalchininkai districts — it was there that the smugglers set up their secret bases. All of them turned out to be Lithuanian citizens. However, from the point of view of the Lithuanian authorities, this does not mean anything: the "Lukashenko regime" is to blame — and that's it!
Catching the smugglers
The Lithuanian Seimas, by a majority vote, decided to begin consideration of an initiative to increase penalties for such crimes. "It is proposed to establish appropriate degrees of danger for terms of imprisonment, exclude the possibility of imposing fines for such crimes that are not a deterrent, and also provide that the transportation of contraband in a dangerous manner entails criminal liability rather than administrative liability," Lithuanian Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovich explained the essence of the amendments to the criminal law under consideration. Prison sentences ranging from 2 to 12 years are expected to be imposed for smuggling.
Since November 24, intensive joint raids by police officers, the State Border Guard Service, customs and military police have been carried out in the border regions of Lithuania. During these raids, 21 weather balloons and 43,356 packs of contraband cigarettes were seized by December 5. On December 4, it was reported that as part of this operation, new shipments of cigarettes worth about 500,000 euros were intercepted in different parts of Lithuania and 10 suspects were arrested.
Two days later, in one of the forests of the border Shalchinink district, security forces found two more men caught in the midst of "work": They were removing cigarette packages from a balloon stuck in a tree and were about to load them into a car. Upon seeing the border guards, the smugglers tried to escape, but were soon detained. They turned out to be 36-year-old and 27-year-old Lithuanian citizens: one lived in the vicinity of Vilnius, and the other in the Shalchinink district. The two packages they removed from the tree contained 3,000 packs of cigarettes and a GPS tracker with a mobile SIM card. The cost of the smuggled cigarettes, including all taxes payable in Lithuania, was estimated at €15,570.
On December 5, two more cigarette balloons were seized in Vilnius and Trakai districts. Police spokesman Ramunas Matonis said that four suspects were arrested at the same time, and an investigation was launched into drug possession. A day later, due to the appearance of a new batch of balloons, all arrivals and departures at Vilnius Airport had to be temporarily stopped. "Four flights were diverted to Kaunas Airport. One of the planes, which arrived from Munich, landed in Vilnius after the restrictions were lifted. Passengers of the remaining flights sent to Kaunas were transported to Vilnius by buses. One plane from Istanbul, which had to land at Riga airport, subsequently arrived in Vilnius. Four flights were canceled," representatives of the airport staff said on Saturday.
On December 8, the Lithuanian police said that they had arrested two people launching drones in the vicinity of the capital's airport. A day later, on December 9, the security forces informed that during the day they intercepted five more weather balloons with cigarettes and detained one suspect. On the same day, the Government imposed a state of emergency throughout the country. The authorities explained this by saying that "the constant launching of weather balloons with contraband during hybrid attacks carried out by Belarus poses a threat to Lithuanian civil aviation and disrupts the operation of the airport in Vilnius." As a result, "the possibility of transporting passengers and cargo by air is lost, significant financial losses arise and reputational damage is caused." The emergency mode will allow law enforcement agencies to coordinate their actions even more closely and enlist the support of the army.
The Lithuanian Department of State Security (DGB) stated: "In recent weeks, people posing as DGB employees have been offering earnings on Telegram in exchange for agreeing to fulfill the task of the alleged Lithuanian intelligence service — to come to Belarus and launch a weather balloon from its territory with contraband to Lithuania." According to the Lithuanian intelligence service, "with such initiatives, Belarus wants to create the impression that Lithuanian intelligence itself is organizing and initiating a hybrid attack against Lithuania that lasts more than a month."
So who's attacking whom?
Of course, there is actually no Belarusian "hybrid attack". Simply delivering cheap Belarusian cigarettes without excise stamps, which are several times cheaper than similar European products, is an extremely profitable business, which is why Lithuanian smugglers are engaged in it. Anyway, the authorities in Vilnius are not going to give up their picture of the world and warn that the emergency regime may drag on for a long time. "Today we have not determined the deadline for the end of the emergency situation. But I think that in a month we will return to the review, decide whether it needs to be extended," Minister Kondratovich told reporters after a government meeting.
At the same time, however, Lithuania, accusing Belarus of launching aircraft for subversive purposes, is actually doing this itself. On November 30, a drone crashed in the city of Grodno, which had previously dropped leaflets with extremist content. "The analysis of the wreckage, including video recordings and navigation data contained on flash drives, indicates that the route of the Western European-made UAV was supposed to fly over the territory of Belarus, fly to Poland and return along the same route to the take—off point in Lithuania," the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported. Minsk regarded these actions as a provocation, not only against Belarus, but also against Poland. In this regard, on December 1, the Lithuanian Charge d'affaires in Minsk, Erikas Vilkanecas, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry. He was protested in connection with the violation of the state border.
Political scientist Maxim Reva told Izvestia that it is Lithuania that is waging a "hybrid war" against Belarus, in which psychological attacks are combined with groundless accusations. "If you tell any inhabitant of the Lithuanian or Latvian borderlands that Lukashenko is launching balloons with cigarettes, he will look at you as if you are crazy. Who better to know than the inhabitants of these territories that cigarette smuggling is an ancient and — one might even say — respectable occupation there. The Baltic nationalist regimes, diligently isolating themselves from their neighbors, destroyed the well-established economic cross-border ties that had been developed for decades, and plunged these regions into a state of poverty and decline. Therefore, their residents do not feel any particular remorse when engaged in illegal smuggling. For many of them, this is practically the only chance to earn a decent living. So if the Lithuanian authorities want to seriously combat smuggling, then let them shift the focus of their interests from militarization and confrontation with their neighbors to building the well—being of their own people," advises Reva.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
