Overview
- Lithuania has closed road traffic at its border with Belarus for one month with a possible extension, citing repeated incursions by meteorological balloons used for smuggling.
- President Alexander Lukashenko signed a decree barring movement in Belarus of trailers registered in Poland and Lithuania and Polish-registered passenger cars engaged in international carriage through December 31, 2027.
- Belarusian customs reported over 2,500 cars waiting at Brest to enter Poland, while freight redirected from Lithuania produced queues of about 3,000 trucks at Kozlovichi and roughly 1,000 across other crossings.
- Minsk introduced reciprocal controls that route Lithuanian trucks only through the Belarus–Lithuania segment, and current counts stand at about 2,100 trucks at Kozlovichi and 520 at Grigorovshchina.
- Lithuania’s haulers’ group Linava estimates the sector could lose around €1 billion annually, and border guards say they recently blocked 63 attempted irregular crossings from Belarus.