Lithuania named a condition for opening the border with Belarus

Chairman of the Lithuanian Seimas Juozas Olekas said that the border with Belarus will be opened after solving the problem of smuggling through balloons. This was reported on November 5 by LRT radio.

"The measures taken now will have an effect — there have been no balloons in recent days. <...> We still want life to go on and the borders to be open again someday," Olekas said in an interview with a local radio station.

The politician noted that the closure of the border helped to limit smuggling, but created difficulties for a normal life. Olekas also stressed the importance of resuming cargo transportation across the border, since goods from Central Asian countries pass through Lithuania.

Threshold of passage: how Lithuania is threatened by attempts to block transit to Kaliningrad

Vilnius has closed the border with Belarus, but has not yet decided to restrict the movement of passengers and cargo to the western region of the Russian Federation.

On November 1, the State Customs Committee (SCC) of Belarus announced that Lithuanian cargo transport would be allowed to return to Lithuania only after the opening of checkpoints at the border. The document entered into force at 00:00 on November 2, 2025.

On October 31, the SCC reported that due to the decisions taken, almost 5,000 Lithuanian tractors and trailers were blocked on the territory of Belarus, and explained that such a measure was a response to Lithuania's closure of both checkpoints on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. It was noted that after the closure of the border with Lithuania, Lithuanian carriers shifted to the Belarusian-Polish and Belarusian-Latvian routes, which led to long queues, long downtime for Belarusian and transit carriers, significant economic losses and disruptions to supply schedules.

Earlier, on October 29, it was reported that Lithuania had completely closed the border with Belarus for a month. According to the government decree, the last two checkpoints, Myadininkai and Shalchininkai, have been shut down. Exceptions are made only for diplomats, transit traffic to Kaliningrad, as well as citizens of Lithuania and EU countries.

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