August M
Lithuanian lawmakers are increasing pressure on security chiefs as balloon-based smuggling expands to the Russian border.
Mounting frustration inside Lithuania’s parliament is reshaping the national conversation around smuggling, as senior officials face demands for quicker results and stronger measures.
Political leaders warned that public patience is thinning while security agencies confront increasingly inventive criminal networks.
Rising political tension
According to Lrytas, the Social Democratic Party (LSDP) summoned Police Commissioner General Arūnas Paulauskas and State Border Guard Service (SBS) Commander Rustamas Liubajevas to the Seimas this week for a briefing dominated by concerns over the balloon-smuggling crisis.
LSDP chairman Mindaugas Sinkevičius warned that citizens are growing alarmed amid aviation disruptions and repeated evening reports of balloon incidents.
He told officials that residents “lack that patience or are overcome by such helplessness,”
urging security agencies to explain what additional resources — financial, technological or staffing — are required to choke off the market inside Lithuania.
The party leader added that the public needs credible reassurance that investigations are progressing.
With the holiday travel season approaching, he said people “no longer know what to plan and what to expect.”
Appeals from law enforcement
Paulauskas responded by highlighting major breakthroughs this year, Lrytas reported. Police have seized nearly 5.5 million packs of illegal cigarettes — a record — and uncovered newly built clandestine factories within the EU, including one dismantled in the Kaunas district in the spring, Lrytas notes.
On the balloon operations, he cautioned that authorities are confronting organised groups using advanced concealment tactics.
Evidence collection, he said, is “extremely complicated, difficult and long-term,” and he asked the public not to expect “very quick, sudden results” if prosecutors are to secure airtight convictions.
Liubajevas also appealed to lawmakers, requesting their backing for reforms proposed by the interior minister to strengthen civil asset confiscation. He emphasised that additional personnel are urgently needed as border pressures escalate.
Widening smuggling routes
Only after addressing political concerns did the SBS outline the evolving security threat. According to Lrytas, Liubajevas revealed that smuggling balloons are now arriving not only from Belarus — previously the main route — but also from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
He said that in a single recent day, a large cluster of balloons drifted toward Latvia, where police and border guards detained both the contraband and those sent to retrieve it.
The commander warned that these shifts show how neighbouring regimes adjust tactics to pressure Lithuania.
Sources: Lrytas
