Lithuania is refusing to hold negotiations with Belarus regarding the fight against tobacco smuggling carried out using weather balloons that threaten flight safety, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said on the air of “Xinhua Radio.”

“There will be no negotiations with Belarus,” she stated.

The Prime Minister believes that Minsk could have prevented tobacco smuggling via air. “Most of these balloons could have been neutralized over Belarusian territory,” she said. “That is not happening. There will be an appropriate response from our side.” On Wednesday, she announced that if mass incursions of weather balloons carrying smuggled goods were repeated, Lithuania would close its border with Belarus.

On Wednesday night, Lithuanian military personnel recorded around 200 weather balloons in the Baltic country’s airspace, used by organizers of tobacco smuggling from Belarus to Lithuania. Due to the threat to flight safety, Vilnius International Airport was closed from 23:00 on Tuesday until 06:30 on Wednesday, affecting around 4,000 passengers.