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Belarusian Intel Using Telegram to Recruit Lithuanians for Contraband Balloon Ops
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Lithuania’s State Security Department (VSD) has warned that Belarusian security and intelligence services are using the Telegram platform to lure Lithuanian citizens into traveling to Belarus and launching contraband balloons back into Lithuania in a new provocation against the country, according to the department on December 9.
According to the statement, in recent weeks, individuals posing as VSD officers on Telegram have been offering money to people in exchange for agreeing to carry out what is presented as a Lithuanian intelligence task: to go to Belarus and, from its territory, release a contraband balloon toward Lithuania.
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VSD said the information it has collected provides “a well-founded assumption that the authors and executors of this operation are Belarusian security and intelligence services” and stressed that “such actions are a crude provocation against our state.”
It added that the aim is to create the impression that Lithuanian intelligence itself is organizing and initiating a hybrid attack against Lithuania that has been underway for more than a month.
The department warned that people who respond to such offers risk becoming tools of the Minsk regime’s propaganda and, if they decide to travel to Belarus, also risk their health and freedom because they may be detained and prosecuted there by the Belarusian KGB .
Lithuanian intelligence urged residents not to give in to these provocations and not to engage in harmful activities on behalf of a foreign state, noting that such actions carry strict criminal liability under Lithuanian law.
It also reminded the public that Russian and Belarusian intelligence services actively use Telegram to search for potential agents, recruit them and maintain contact, and called on anyone who suspects recruitment attempts or espionage against them or their organization to inform VSD, which it said can help assess whether a threat is real.
Earlier, it was reported that Lithuanian government will declare a state of emergency in response to smuggled balloons from Belarus posing public‑safety risks over airspace and dual‑use threats.
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