OREANDA-NEWS  Incidents involving balloons used for smuggling on the Belarusian-Lithuanian border have not been recorded in recent days, Spokesman for Lithuanian Prime Minister Ignas Dobrovolskas said. 

"In recent days, we have not registered balloons regardless of the wind direction," he said. - But we are by no means relaxing about this. We understand that we are dealing with an authoritarian and difficult-to-predict state, so we remain vigilant, and the services continue to work intensively."

In his opinion, "our diplomatic efforts have made a significant contribution to improving the situation."

"We are grateful to the administration of US President Donald Trump and Special Envoy John Cole for their efforts," Dobrovolskas said.

At the end of October, the Lithuanian government decided to close the land border with Belarus for a month after several cases of contraband weather balloons over Lithuania, which forced the closure of Vilnius Airport.

After that, it turned out that in Belarus, many trucks remain without the opportunity to travel to Lithuania. The government of Belarus first restricted their ability to travel, and then decided to release the drivers and leave the cars in special parking lots. In order to return the trucks, the Lithuanian government decided to open the border ahead of schedule, which was done on the night of November 20, but this did not solve the problem. Minsk demands negotiations at the diplomatic level, Vilnius refused.

On December 19, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that the Lithuanian side had already agreed to negotiations at the Foreign Ministry level.