Lithuanian border guards have discovered two unfinished tunnels along the border with Belarus that are suspected to have been intended for smuggling migrants into Lithuania.
The discoveries were made over the past few days with the assistance of Polish border officers, who deployed specialized equipment to detect underground passages.
The first tunnel was found on Sunday evening near the village of Piesciai in the Varėna district after Lithuanian officials detected signs of underground activity and requested support from Poland’s Podlaskie Border Guard Unit.
Using specialized tunnel-detection equipment, Polish officers located the passage, which is believed to have been dug from the Belarusian side.
“The tunnel, approximately one meter in diameter, extended about five meters from the Belarusian border into Lithuania. It had not yet reached an exit point, meaning migrants or anyone else had no way of crossing,” Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service said.
A second tunnel, measuring 11 meters in length, was discovered on Wednesday near the village of Pertakas in the Lazdijai district. Border guards said technical monitoring equipment again detected vibrations indicating underground construction.
When officers arrived at the scene, around 20 foreign nationals, described as young men in civilian clothing, reportedly fled back into Belarus. It remains unclear whether they had already entered the tunnel.
The second passage was being excavated beneath a patrol road further inside Lithuanian territory but had also not yet reached an exit point.
The discoveries come amid ongoing pressure on the European Union’s eastern borders. Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia have for years accused Belarus of facilitating migrant movements as part of a broader hybrid warfare strategy—an allegation Minsk denies.
Both Vilnius and Warsaw have strengthened security along the Belarusian border in recent years by constructing border fences and expanding surveillance infrastructure to deter illegal crossings.
Lithuanian authorities have launched an investigation into the suspected preparations for illegal border crossings, and both tunnels were later filled in after procedural work had been completed.
