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Lithuania blames Belarus for balloons disrupting air trafficWill close Belarus border crossingsLithuanian PM calls incidents 'hybrid attacks'European aviation has faced multiple disruptions Lithuania's Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said on Monday her country will begin to shoot down smuggler balloons crossing the border from Belarus, which have repeatedly interrupted the Baltic nation's air traffic. Lithuania closed Vilnius Airport four times last week after balloons entered its airspace, and each time temporarily shut its Belarus border crossings in response to the incidents. Lithuania has said balloons are sent by smugglers transporting contraband cigarettes from Belarus into the EU, but it also blames Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for not stopping the practice. Ruginiene called the incidents "hybrid attacks" and said the Belarus border crossings will be closed except for travel by diplomats and by European Union citizens leaving the neighbouring country. "Today we have decided to take the strictest measures. There is no other way," Ruginiene told a press conference, adding that Nato member Lithuania may also discuss invoking Nato article 4 security consultations. Belarus summoned Lithuania's chargé d'affaires in Minsk to protest Vilnius's unilateral closure of the border, which was carried out without official notice, the Foreign Ministry said, according to the BELTA news agency. European aviation has repeatedly been thrown into chaos in recent weeks by drone sightings and other air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and the Baltic region. On Thursday, Lithuania said two Russian military aircraft had entered its airspace for about 18 seconds, prompting a formal protest and a reaction from Nato forces, while Russia denied the incident. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said recent airspace violations should not be regarded as isolated incidents. "These are calculated provocations designed to destabilize, distract (and) test Nato's resolve," he said on social media X.

Russia and Belarus are rehearsing the launch of Russian tactical nuclear weapons as part of joint war games, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday.State media quoted the Belarusian chief of staff as saying that the exercises also featured Russia's Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it test-fired last year in the war with Ukraine.Russia and Belarus are ending five days of war games codenamed Zapad (West) in a show of force they say is to test combat readiness but which has unnerved some surrounding countries.Dressed in military attire, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with top military officials Tuesday in Russia's Nizhny Novogorod region, where some of the drills took place.Some 100,000 military personnel participated in the exercises, which involved roughly 10,000 pieces of military equipment, the Kremlin chief said in comments broadcast on state television.The drills were to ensure the "unconditional protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Union State," Putin said, referring to the alliance of Russia and Belarus.The war games, which Western military analysts say are designed to intimidate Europe, come just days after Polish and Nato forces say they shot down Russian drones that entered Polish airspace.Belarus, a close Russian ally which borders Ukraine and Russia, as well as Nato members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, hosts Russian tactical nuclear weapons which Moscow retains command and control of.Lukashenko was cited by the Belarusian state news agency Belta as saying that it was only natural that the Russian tactical nuclear weapons were part of the Zapad drills."We are practising everything there. They (the West) know this too, we are not hiding it. From firing conventional small arms to nuclear warheads. Again, we must be able to do all this. Otherwise, why would they be on Belarusian territory?" he was quoted as saying."But we are absolutely not planning to threaten anyone with this."The Belarusian Defence Ministry confirmed in a statement that the use of tactical nuclear weapons had been rehearsed along with the deployment of Russia's intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile that Moscow fired at Ukraine for the first time on November 21 last year.Putin said late last year that Russia could deploy Oreshniks, which he has claimed are impossible to intercept, on the territory of Belarus in the second half of 2025.Lukashenko, who holds regular talks with Putin, allowed Moscow to use his territory to enter Ukraine in February 2022, but has not committed his own troops to the fighting.US President Donald Trump has begun cultivating closer ties with Lukashenko, long treated as a pariah by the West, and relaxed some sanctions on Belarus last week in return for the release of 52 prisoners including political opponents.US military officers observed part of the Zapad exercise in Belarus on Monday.Russia's Defence Ministry said Tuesday that nuclear-capable Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers had rehearsed launching cruise missiles over the Barents Sea north of the Nordic countries.The bombers had flown over the Barents Sea's neutral waters for about four hours, escorted by MiG-31 fighter jets, it said.Separately, it said Marines belonging to Russia's Northern Fleet practised repelling an amphibious landing by an enemy force on a peninsula in Russia's Murmansk region.Video showed troops — backed by attack helicopters and fighter jets — using armoured personnel carriers, drones, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons — seeing off an imaginary enemy.Ships from Russia's Baltic Fleet — backed by fighter jets — test-fired cruise missiles at notional enemy ships, as did the fleet's land-based mobile missile launchers.In Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, troops practised using a Torn-MDM radio reconnaissance complex to detect the location of enemy forces so that their coordinates could be passed on to drone and artillery units.