On the continuous Belarusian hybrid attacks against Lithuania

B100582/2025

European Parliament resolution on the continuous Belarusian hybrid attacks against Lithuania

(2025/3025(RSP))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Belarus,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas on 9 December 2025, Lithuania declared a state of emergency after hundreds of balloons used for smuggling, launched from Belarus, repeatedly entered its airspace; whereas Lithuanian authorities have underlined that these balloons carried contraband; whereas the balloons have forced the closure of Vilnius Airport and Kaunas Airport multiple times, disrupting hundreds of flights, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and posing a serious security threat to passengers and crews;

B. whereas these incursions constitute a deliberate hybrid attack by Belarus, designed to destabilise Lithuania, and by extension, the EU, and under the state-of-emergency rules, the Lithuanian Government has deployed military forces to assist police and border guards and has expanded powers for searches, detentions and movement control;

C. whereas Belarus has denied orchestrating the balloon launches and is calling the Lithuanian Government’s response provocative, in a manner similar to Russia’s hybrid and denial tactics; whereas Belarus acts as a strategic extension of Russia’s military footprint and intelligence ecosystem;

D. whereas Belarus provides territory, logistics, material support and political cover for Russia’s broader hybrid operations against EU Member States, as well as for waging war against Ukraine; whereas since 2020, the Lukashenka regime has essentially fused its security apparatus with that of Russia through intelligence-sharing, military coordination and direct cooperation, as Russian operatives can act in Belarus without constraint;

E. whereas the balloon incidents happened during an already-charged geopolitical and regional landscape, and since 2021, Belarus and Russia have manufactured an artificial ‘migration crisis’ at EU borders, aimed to pressure and destabilise EU and NATO member states, including by discrediting Lithuania, Poland and the EU on the international arena through information manipulation and disinformation, accusing them of violating the human rights of migrants, as well as attempting to sow division among EU Member States, polarising societies, igniting social conflicts in EU Member States and diverting resources;

F. whereas the regime in Minsk’s continued support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine remains a significant geopolitical concern for the EU; whereas the EU strongly condemns Belarus’s complicity in enabling Russia’s military actions and calls on the regime to immediately cease such support and honour its international obligations, given that Belarus has consistently played an active role in facilitating Russia’s war efforts, and hybrid attacks against EU Member States, further destabilising the region;

G. whereas the presence of Russian conventional and nuclear-capable systems in Belarus, along with intensified joint military drills, poses a significant threat to European security and to the resilience of EU and NATO infrastructure, including the strategically vulnerable Suwałki Gap, as well as the EU’s entire eastern flank;

H. whereas the EU has repeatedly condemned the Lukashenka regime’s human rights violations, including those related to transnational repression, illegitimate governance and complicity in the Russian aggression against Ukraine, and has called for the release of all political prisoners, for perpetrators to be held to account and for the cessation of hybrid destabilisation tactics;

I. whereas Lithuania continues to provide a safe haven and legal protection to Belarusian and Russian opposition figures, civil society organisations and independent journalists, thereby upholding its international obligations and reinforcing EU-wide human rights standards;

J. whereas across the region, including in Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Poland, but also across other EU Member States, including Romania and Denmark, hybrid tactics, such as airspace incursions, drone flights and disinformation operations have surged, underscoring a pattern of Russian hybrid pressure on NATO’s eastern flank; whereas other countries, including Germany and Sweden, are facing systemic Russia-linked hybrid pressures via cyber and disinformation operations;

K. whereas Belarus has engaged in economic coercion by taking EU road freight vehicles hostage, demanding ransom, threatening confiscation and obstructing legitimate border crossings, further contributing to destabilisation and hybrid pressure;

L. whereas Lithuania, due to its borders with Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, is one of the members of both the EU and NATO most exposed to hybrid threats;

1. Expresses its full solidarity with Lithuania, and recognises its essential role in upholding the security of the EU’s external border and the stability of the Baltic region and the EU, as a whole;

2. Fully supports Lithuania’s right to take all necessary and proportionate defensive measures to safeguard its sovereignty, airspace and public safety, including the interception or neutralisation of unmanned flying objects originating in Belarus that pose a threat to security or civil aviation;

3. Calls on Belarus to immediately cease all hybrid activities, including airspace intrusions, actions directed against critical infrastructure, economic coercion, instrumentalisation of migration, organised criminal operations, and transnational repression targeting Belarusians who fled persecution and now reside in EU Member States, and to ensure the safety of its borders and airspace;

4. Welcomes the EU and NATO’s reinforcement of the eastern flank in 2025 and onwards in response to hybrid and conventional threats stemming from Russia and Belarus, through Operation Baltic Sentry and Operation Eastern Sentry, and also urges the swift implementation of the EU flagship projects, namely the Eastern Flank Watch and the European Drone Defence Initiative, as part of the European Defence Preparedness Strategy;

5. Calls on the Commission to provide increased financial, technical and operational support to Lithuania to help manage hybrid threats emanating from Belarus, including cyber-defence, strategic communication, border resilience and advanced surveillance capabilities; calls for the EU to ensure sufficient financing for European defence initiatives, including military mobility, flagship defence projects, the EU’s priority capability coalitions and the Connecting Europe Facility, in the 2028-2034 multiannual financial framework;

6. Calls on the Commission to reinforce and broaden EU financial assistance aimed at countering hybrid threats in general, by creating dedicated funding for the Member States most exposed to hostile activities, including cyberattacks, disinformation, the instrumentalisation of migration, transnational repression and pressure on critical infrastructure; urges the Commission to prioritise support to frontline Member States such as Romania, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and to develop rapid-response mechanisms ensuring timely and flexible access to EU funds and support from the dedicated EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies in situations of hybrid destabilisation;

7. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the international accountability, including in the relevant international organisations, of the Belarusian regime for illegally retaining EU vehicles, endangering the safety and security of civil aviation, and engaging in transnational repression of Belarusians residing in EU Member States;

8. Welcomes the adoption of a new criterion of sanctions regime to cover hybrid activities against EU Member States, and calls on the Council to take further sectorial measures, in this regard;

9. Calls for deeper EU-NATO intelligence cooperation, faster airspace-security mechanisms, and more coordinated counter-hybrid strategies across the member states of both organisations;

10. Welcomes the Commission’s European Democracy Shield initiative, recognising it as a concrete and forward-looking framework that strengthens the EU’s capacity to protect the integrity of its information space, reinforce democratic institutions, and coordinate early responses to foreign interference and hybrid threats; welcomes the upcoming establishment of a European Centre for Democratic Resilience, recognising it as a key deliverable of the European Democracy Shield, which will strengthen the EU’s collective capacity to anticipate, detect and respond to threats, build democratic resilience, enhance information-sharing between the Member States, and bolster resilience against foreign information manipulation and disinformation, especially stemming from Russia, Belarus and other non-like-minded states; welcomes the anticipated establishment, within the European Centre for Democratic Resilience, of a Stakeholder Platform to facilitate dialogue with trusted stakeholders, such as civil society organisations, researchers and academia, fact-checkers and media providers, as essential partners in detecting and responding to hybrid threats and boosting societal resilience;

11. Welcomes the ProtectEU internal security strategy and the development of the European Critical Communication System as important steps toward strengthening the EU’s capacity to anticipate and respond to hybrid threats, from cyber-intrusions to foreign information manipulation and interference, and calls on the Commission and the Member States to accelerate the operationalisation of shared threat-assessment and early-warning mechanisms;

12. Calls for closer alignment between ProtectEU and the European Democracy Shield to ensure that democratic resilience is embedded in internal security planning, and urges deeper practical cooperation with NATO to deliver coherent, civil-military responses to evolving hybrid challenges;

13. Welcomes the continued EU-NATO dialogue on countering hybrid threats, recognising that close coordination between the two is essential in responding to increasingly complex challenges such as cyberattacks, foreign information manipulation and threats to critical infrastructure;

14. Welcomes NATO’s strengthened posture along Europe’s eastern flank and in the Baltic region, essential for Europe’s broader security and military deterrence at a time of rising geopolitical pressure, and calls for the further deepening of this partnership through closer EU-NATO coordination, enhanced joint planning and exercises; urges greater attention to the Baltic Sea region and the Black Sea region, where sustained investment in situational awareness, defence cooperation and maritime security is needed to reinforce stability and safeguard Europe’s strategic interests;

15. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, NATO and to the authorities of the Belarusian regime.