Expensive Blockade: How Fight Against Balloons Is Stifling Lithuanian Business

Lithuania, a sovereign state, a member of NATO and the European Union, is stunned by the onslaught of balloons. Not Iskanders or Kinzhals, but the cheapest rubber balloons used by Lithuanians to smuggle contraband.

This isn't charity. It's a product that someone in Lithuania has paid for and is waiting for. The weather balloons intercepted by Belarusian border guards contained Lithuanian SIM cards and GPS trackers, which are used to track them and seize their cargo.

Now we need to understand the logic of the Lithuanian authorities, who, instead of catching smugglers and illegal markets, closed the legal automobile border. Don't the Lithuanian authorities understand that these are probes from their smugglers? Why do they need this oil painting—a Vilnius airport at a standstill, people trapped at the land border closed for a month?

It's like the script for a comedy: "We're ready for war, but balloons are too much!" They all understand perfectly well. Let's be honest: this smuggling scheme has been going on in the border area for years. Cargo was even shipped by water. This isn't news, but the EU funds—billions—for closing the border began only recently. Poland is a pioneer. And a bad example, as we know, is contagious, especially if the country's economy is based on someone else's investments and subsidies.

Laurynas Ragelskis, blogger (Lithuania):

"One reason for such actions is to prevent rapprochement with Belarus at the initiative of the United States. The Lithuanian authorities sensed trouble with the normalization of relations between the United States and Belarus, which means Lithuania will also need to change its attitude toward our country and open the transit of potash fertilizers, which is beneficial to the Americans. This will harm the interests of Lithuanian conservatives and the Landsbergis clan, who profited from blocking it."

It's ironic, but Poland has now outmaneuvered Vilnius – while they are raising an air raid alarm and heroically closing the border with Belarus, Warsaw is turning on its calculator. And what do we see? The Poles are not only not closing, but, on the contrary, are ready to open two border crossings – Kuznica and Bobrovniki.

The flow through Poland is 300 km shorter and five times faster. Lithuanians from Vilnius to Ashmyany are now taking a detour. Poland is counting profits, Lithuania is counting losses. Lithuanian business is booming: the vice president of the road carriers' association calls it a gift to the Belarusian budget. Want to travel through Poland or Latvia? Pay for re-coupling, seals, and stand in lines for 10-15 days. Belarusians will get three times more, and you'll get nothing.

The Baltics are the "appendix of Europe," a dead end. If Poland expands, the Lithuanian logistics sector can be buried. Lithuanian officials wanted to strangle Belarus with a blockade, but they're ultimately strangling themselves. Ironic, indeed.

But there's a truly nasty aspect to this story. They closed the border just when people were visiting their relatives' graves. So, we have what we have: a state incapable of protecting its sky from balloons, a government that, for the sake of short-term political speculation, is cutting off the branch on which its own business is sitting, and a diplomacy that proudly declares, "We will not negotiate!" While Poland is counting its profits, Lithuania is losing not only money but also face.

All that remains is to shrug and repeat after MP Taraskevicius: "Dear politicians, stop looking for someone to blame; we need solutions." But solutions, it seems, are not in sight. There's only one option: to heroically fight the balloons until everything else pops.