Lithuania shuts Vilnius airport again due to weather balloons

VILNIUS (Reuters) -Lithuania's Vilnius airport temporarily closed on Thursday due to weather balloons flying in its vicinity, the airport said in a post on Facebook, the sixth such incident this month.

Lithuania has said the balloons are sent by smugglers transporting contraband cigarettes, but it also blames Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for not stopping the practice.

"According to preliminary information, the decision to restrict the airspace was made due to a balloon (or balloons) flying in the direction of Vilnius Airport," the airport said on Thursday.

Traffic at the capital airport was suspended until 2110 GMT, it added.

The Baltic nation has already closed its border crossings between Lithuania and Belarus for most travellers until the end of November in response to the airspace disruptions, and has said it plans to shoot down balloons.

Lukashenko said on Tuesday that the Lithuanian border closure was a "crazy scam" and he accused the West of fighting a hybrid war against Belarus and Russia that was ushering in a new era of barbed-wire division.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas, writing by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik)

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