According to Reuters and Poland's Operational Command, military radar detected smuggling balloons crossing from Belarus into Podlaskie Voivodeship on the night of 21–22 January 2026 (CET); the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Belarusian chargé d'affaires in Warsaw on 22 January. AirVeto's wind layer over the Podlaskie–Belarus frontier shows the east-northeasterly flow corridor that carried the objects across the Sokółka County border zone during that window. Three weeks later, a second wave of crossings on 31 January–2 February 2026 — three consecutive nights — triggered emergency airspace closures over Podlaskie. On 5 February, Polish prosecutors detained five people for operating the smuggling network that launched the balloons.
The objects were helium-filled weather balloons carrying pods of contraband cigarettes and fitted with GPS trackers so that ground teams on the Polish side could locate and retrieve the cargo after landing.
Illustrative file photo. This image is not from the incident described — it shows a contraband-type balloon of the kind deployed along the Belarusian frontier.
Poland's Operational Command confirmed UAV and balloon crossings on 21–22 January
On the evening of 21 January 2026, Poland's Operational Command reported increased small-drone activity over the Polish-Belarusian border in Podlaskie Voivodeship. Military radar tracked the objects; police units recovered balloon remains and illegal cigarettes near Białystok and Sokółka overnight. Polish authorities characterised the incursion as consistent with the balloon-smuggling pattern documented across northeastern Poland since at least October 2025.
The following day, 22 January 2026, Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Belarusian chargé d'affaires in Warsaw to protest the airspace breach. Officials noted that the Belarusian side had no explanation for why objects of this number were crossing the border repeatedly, and that the Polish government questioned whether the Belarusian state had no knowledge of or influence over the operations. NATO described the pattern as a form of hybrid pressure on the Alliance's eastern flank.
Three consecutive nights of crossings forced emergency NOTAMs in late January and early February
On the night of 30–31 January 2026, Poland's Operational Command issued an emergency NOTAM closing a section of airspace over the Podlaskie Voivodeship after military radar again detected slow-moving objects drifting in from Belarus. The closure was the second airspace alert within a week.
The following two nights — 1–2 February and 2–3 February — produced further crossings. According to Poland's General Command of the Armed Forces, the balloons on those nights carried contraband pods assessed to contain cigarettes and, in some cases, reconnaissance cameras. Poland imposed temporary airspace restrictions after the third consecutive night.
By the time the February wave concluded, more than 220 balloon incursions had been recorded in Poland since October 2025, per official figures cited by Polish and NATO sources.
Five smugglers were arrested and charged on 5–6 February
On 5 February 2026, Polish prosecutors in Siedlce announced the detention of five people — two Polish nationals, two Ukrainian nationals, and one Belarusian national — accused of running an organised crime group that used large weather balloons to ferry contraband cigarettes from Belarus. Prosecutors placed all five in three-month pre-trial detention.
According to the charges cited by Euronews and Notes From Poland, the group smuggled at least 48,000 packs of cigarettes across the Polish-Belarusian frontier, using GPS devices sewn into the parcels to track the balloons after they entered Polish airspace and locate the cargo on landing. The Polish treasury estimated a loss of approximately 2 million zloty (€474,000) in unpaid excise taxes attributable to the operation.
A separate report by Charter'97 on 13 February noted that eight people had been detained in total in the broader investigation, suggesting additional arrests after the initial five.
Poland formalised a 90-day border airspace restriction in March 2026
The February incursions accelerated work on a permanent regulatory response. On 6 March 2026, Poland's Air Navigation Services Agency (PAŻP) published a NOTAM activating restricted zone EP R130 from ground level to 3,000 metres (FL100) across four border voivodeships: Podlaskie, Lubelskie, Podkarpackie, and Warmińsko-Mazurskie. The zone took effect on 10 March 2026 and runs through 9 June 2026, with an option to renew.
Under EP R130, night-time flights are banned outright along the border strip. Daytime flights require a filed flight plan, active transponder, and continuous radio contact with Polish air-traffic control. The measure covers the full Polish-Belarusian frontier and a section of the Ukrainian border.
Wind layer — what the flow looked like at the time of the crossings
The January crossings entered Podlaskie from the north-northeast — the bearing from the Belarusian side of the Sokółka County border. The balloons travel at approximately 3,000 metres (700 hPa), where synoptic winds in January over this corridor are typically easterly to northeasterly as a result of the Siberian High extending westward across the Baltic region.
AirVeto's wind layer shows the 700 hPa flow over Podlaskie during the documented crossing windows. The embed above renders the wind field at the time of the incursion; the methodology behind the reconstruction is described on the AirVeto methodology page.
Balloon release points are typically on the Belarusian side of the border, 5–20 km northeast of Sokółka. At 3,000 m and with easterly synoptic winds, a balloon released from that zone reaches the Podlaskie plain within 1–3 hours depending on speed. The GPS trackers carried by the parcels serve the same function AirVeto's model serves from the outside: real-time tracking of where a wind-borne object is heading.
This incident sits inside a documented pattern of Belarusian hybrid pressure
The January–February 2026 Podlaskie incursions are the most operationally significant episode in a pattern running back to at least October 2025. The earlier 24 December 2025 Białystok balloon incursion — the first publicly documented event where AirVeto's wind layer pre-flagged the crossing corridor — is the same type of operation on the same corridor.
The broader Polish smuggling-balloon archive and wind context are collected at Balony przemytnicze. Lithuanian equivalent crossings in the same seasonal window are tracked in the AirVeto Lithuania incident archive.