Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė met with Michal during her first official visit to Tallinn on Friday. The pair held a joint meeting followed by a press conference.

The prime ministers discussed the smugglers' balloons that have been launched over the Belarusian border and into Lithuanian airspace in recent months. The balloons have forced Vilnius Airport to close multiple times.

The Belarusian border zone, where balloons are launched from, is tightly controlled by border and other security services. Lithuanian law enforcement agencies believe no balloon is launched without the knowledge of Belarusian officials, public broadcaster LRT reported.

Michal said the countries in the region understand Russia and Belarus best and that they need to constantly strengthen the ability to respond in the air, at sea, on land, and in cyberspace.

"Estonia stands firmly beside Lithuania when balloons are sent from Belarus into a European Union and NATO country. This is a hybrid attack," he stressed.

Ruginienė said a coordinated response is needed: "Today we are being tested through hybrid attacks that challenge not only our resilience, but also our unity. Our response must be coordinated, united, and determined — only by acting together can we ensure the security of our region."

"Instrumentalized smuggling"

The Baltic foreign ministers also discussed the topic in Riga on Friday during the  31st meeting of the Baltic Council.

Lithuania's foreign minister Kęstutis Budrys said: "We've seen instrumentalized migration, now we see instrumentalized smuggling."

He said the EU needs to agree to impose additional sanctions on Belarus to stop activities on the border, now and in the future, against EU and NATO airspace.

"And if someone thinks that hybrid tools are the ones to achieve political results, we should deny them this perspective, deny them this scenario," Budrys said. 

The Lithuanian minister said countries need to work together and coordinate restrictions so they can prevent "manipulations" from Russia and Belarus. He said this is what occurred with irregular migration up and down the Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian borders.

"There is always the same scheme, one is beaten, one is rewarded and the third one is just ignored. And they were trying to play this [game] the whole time," he said.

Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200) also stressed the Baltics, NATO and EU must cooperate to stop this activity. He called the smuggling balloons and hybrid attacks "a new level" of activity from Russia and Belarus.

"But this is not a Lithuanian problem – this is our common European security problem. And Russia and Belarus is violating it [European security] again and again using new weapons," Tsahkna said.

You can watch the meeting below.

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