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VILNIUS: Some 2,000 trucks were stranded Friday in Belarus after Lithuania closed its border in response to recent airspace disruptions, a truckers association said.
Dozens of balloons loaded with illegal cigarettes entered Lithuania’s airspace last week, forcing the temporary closure of airports in the capital Vilnius and Kaunas, affecting numerous flights and thousands of passengers.
Vilnius and the European Union denounced the incidents as a “hybrid attack.”
“Around 2,000 trucks are stranded in Belarus,” Oleg Tarasov, vice president of Linava, the Lithuanian road carriers’ association, told AFP on Friday.
“The Belarusians have seized all Lithuanian vehicles and are not allowing them to leave (the border area). We are being held hostage, our goods are being held hostage,” he said.
An estimated 60 million euros ($69 million) in assets are currently stuck in Belarus, according to Tarasov, who warned such delays could cause around 18 million euros in monthly losses.
The Linava official criticized the government for not consulting or informing road carriers ahead of the closure, which affects cross-border freight transport.
Lithuania’s logistics sector employs some 54,000 drivers who operate around 56,000 trucks, according to data provided by the association.
Lithuania, a NATO and European Union member, shut its last two border crossings with Belarus until November 30 in response to last week’s incident.
Four other border crossings with Belarus were closed in 2023 and 2024 due to security concerns after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Neighbouring Poland also temporarily shut its border with Belarus in September when Minsk hosted Russia-led military exercises, and has since reopened only some crossings.

GENEVA: Civilian life on the frontlines in Ukraine is becoming a battle for survival, with attacks on energy infrastructure threatening to spark a major winter crisis, the United Nations warned Friday.
Matthias Schmale, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, said civilians were increasingly bearing the brunt with the approach of the fourth winter since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Schmale said this year had been deadlier for civilians than 2024, with a 30-percent increase in casualties.
Notably, a third of all recorded civilian deaths and injuries in 2025 were caused by drone attacks.
“This is increasingly a technological war: a drone war,” he told reporters in Geneva.
He said increased attacks on frontline areas had seen more than 57,000 evacuees seek aid at transit sites, while markets close to the front lines were becoming “increasingly dysfunctional.”
“Apart from the terror of war, the sirens, the attacks, it’s also increasingly a fight for survival,” with limited access to basic goods, he said.

- Energy attacks -

Schmale voiced concerns for people who were preparing for another winter in frontline cities, warning they could find themselves stuck in high-rise buildings, cut off from water and electricity, due to Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
“Destroying energy production and distribution capacity as winter starts clearly impacts the civilian population and is a form of terror,” he said.
If the rate of repairs does not keep pace with the rate of destruction, “that could turn into a major crisis,” he said.
“There is no way that with the available resources we would be able to respond to a major crisis within a crisis.”
The UN’s winter response plan, which aims to provide more than 1.7 million people with aid including heating and cash assistance to help families through the cold months, is just 50 percent funded.

- ‘Protracted war’ -

US President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war have yielded no progress and Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected multiple calls for a ceasefire.
“Our basic planning assumption for 2026 is the war is continuing,” Schmale said, and “we’re sadly, dramatically, in this for the longer haul.”
“This feels increasingly like this is a protracted war,” he said.
“Right now on the ground it doesn’t feel at all like it’s ending any time soon.”
Schmale said he was “amazed by the resilience of people,” but warned: “let’s not romanticize resilience,” with civilians growing increasingly conflict-weary.
“The mental health impact of this war is increasing,” he said, fearing that Ukraine will have to “deal with that for at least a generation, if not several.”