Lithuanian FM tells EU must bolster eastern flank now

Defending the eastern flank is now an existential question for Europe, Lithuania’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kęstutis Budrys told EU News in an interview after a series of air incursions put member states from the Baltics to Poland on high alert.

Disruptions in the European airspace by drones and flying objects like air balloons have been denounced by several countries as a deliberate effort to provoke and destabilise the region.

Over the weekend, Lithuania intercepted large air balloons entering its airspace, forcing it to shut down Vilnius Airport. Poland, Denmark, Romania and Estonia have also recorded drone incursions into their territories.

“We should treat them as a hybrid threat at the minimum,” Budrys told EU News. “We are dealing with organised crime coming from Belarus. If we cannot deter by denial, then we should deter by punishment.”

Lithuania is calling on the European Union to impose broader sanctions on Belarus in the aviation and banking sectors, and to beef up defence capabilities on the eastern flank to deter hybrid threats from the air. Minsk is already heavily sanctioned by the EU for assisting Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine.

Vilnius, however, argues it is time to go further and send a coordinated message to Minsk.

“This is a hybrid attack against a member state, and we want the sanctions regime to be strengthened,” Budrys said.

“As a first step, we should add hybrid threats to the criteria for sanctions. We have not done it for Russia, not for Belarus. The Belarusian regime must feel the consequences of their action, it’s our obligation to respond.”

Lithuania argues that the large air balloons, which are used for the illegal trade of cigarettes, are part of a campaign by Belarus to create chaos in civil aviation, fuel anxiety in society, and ultimately decrease support for Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed these concerns in a speech to the European Parliament this month, where she argued “something new and dangerous is happening in our skies,” aiming to test European resolve as Russia continues the war.

She referred to the Lithuanian incident as “provocation, a hybrid threat, that would not be tolerated”— a move welcomed by the Lithuanian government.

‘Existential threat’

The EU slapped sanctions on the country for the first time in 2020 after its autocratic leader Aliaksandr Lukashenka was accused of rigging the election, which the opposition argues his regime manipulated and stole from rival Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is now in exile.

Brussels imposed further sanctions on the country after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, in which Belarus was used as a launchpad for the military operation against Kyiv.

Sanctions have gone in crescendo since, with a fresh round of restrictions included in the 19th package approved by the EU earlier this month. However, experts argue that circumvention out of Belarus and into Russia is still happening.

While Russia and Belarus maintain close ties, Lithuania has said it is too soon to determine whether Moscow is assisting Belarus in launching the air balloons. The Lithuanian border with Belarus has been shut indefinitely.

“To claim this was done in full coordination, we would need more data,” Budrys said. “We won’t speculate about it until we have the full details.”

Facing a string of disruptions, member states bordering Russia or Belarus, or considered the most exposed, have urged the deployment of more anti-drone capabilities.

The Commission presented a plan, first titled “drone wall” — later renamed the European Drone Initiative — to boost these capabilities. The proposal received mixed reactions from southern European member states, which considered it too focused on the eastern flank with little attention paid to the Mediterranean, but also inoperable.

“What is more important than security for Europe now? Everything else is unimportant if we cannot provide security for our citizens,” he said. “This is existential.”