“The EU firmly condemns Belarus’s persistent and provocative actions against the EU and its member states, which are inacceptable and in contradiction with Lukashenko’s previous statements aimed at improving relationships with the EU”. This has been written today in a statement by Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the EU, following the repeated balloon raids in Lithuania’s airspace from Belarus. According to the EU, they are not just smuggling devices – as some of them carry cigarettes – but “happen in the context of a wider, targeted hybrid campaign, along with other actions including State-funded migrant smuggling”, Kallas reports. And she asked Belarus to “immediately stop” such actions, “adopt without further delay effective measures to control its airspace, its borders and its territory, and to fight and prevent organised crime activities that originate from within”. To Lithuania and to all of the other member states affected by Belarus’s hybrid actions, “full solidarity” from the High Representative, who also stated that the EU is ready to take additional sanctions against Belarus if the raids continue, because “we will not tolerate any hybrid campaign against the EU or any one of its member states”.