Belarusian Defense Ministry Lodges Protest To Lithuanian Attache Over Airspace Incident

Faizan Hashmi Published August 24, 2020 | 09:46 PM

Belarusian Defense Ministry on Monday handed a note of protest to a military attache at the Lithuanian embassy in the country as an object floated from Lithuania attempted to illegally cross into the Belarusian airspace, adding that Minsk expects Vilnius to prove its statement that a helicopter of the Belarusian air force has crossed into the Lithuanian airspace

MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th August, 2020) Belarusian Defense Ministry on Monday handed a note of protest to a military attache at the Lithuanian embassy in the country as an object floated from Lithuania attempted to illegally cross into the Belarusian airspace, adding that Minsk expects Vilnius to prove its statement that a helicopter of the Belarusian air force has crossed into the Lithuanian airspace.

Belarus and Lithuania have exchanged accusations over illegal crossing into each other's airspace after the Belarusian air force intercepted what it described as a device composed of eight balloons showing anti-Belarus symbols, floated from the Lithuanian territory.

"The leadership of the Defense Ministry's international military cooperation department held a meeting with the military attache at the Lithuanian embassy in Belarus.

During the meeting, the Lithuanian attache was informed of the illegal crossing of the state border of the Republic of Belarus in the airspace from the Lithuanian side on 23 August, and a protest was lodged," the ministry wrote on its Telegram channel.

According to the ministry, the violation was prevented with the use of the Belarusian air forces' Mi-24 helicopters. In addition, the country's armed forces have evidence that as the aviation was fulfilling these tasks, it acted exclusively in the airspace of Belarus.

Belarus also hopes that the statement of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry about the alleged violation of the country's airspace by a Belarusian helicopter would be supported by evidence without being tied to political issues, the ministry added.