Belarus Orders Negotiations With Lithuania Over Reopening Border Crossings

Overview

• After proposals from Vilnius, Alexander Lukashenko instructed the foreign ministry to organize talks to normalize the situation and restore full checkpoint operations, with Security Council secretary Alexander Volfovich overseeing coordination.
• Lithuania will again petition at the border plenipotentiary level to open the Medininkai and Šalčininkai checkpoints in both directions for an evacuation corridor.
• Belarus’s foreign ministry reports that more than 1,100 Lithuanian trucks stranded in the country have been relocated to designated parking areas.
• Belarusian authorities have provided drivers with catering, food outlets, safe drinking water, and sanitary blocks with showers near border facilities, according to Deputy Health Minister Svetlana Nechay.
• Vilnius maintains it will not offer concessions, describing balloon-launched cigarette smuggling from Belarus as a hybrid attack, after closing the road border on October 29 with only limited reception at Medininkai.