In Lithuania, on the border with Belarus, 12 underground tunnels have already been discovered, through which migrants apparently penetrate the country's territory. According to experts, the use of the tunnels is probably another attempt by Minsk to provoke political instability in neighboring Lithuania.
The Lithuanian-Belarusian border stretches for almost 700 km, 550 of which are protected by a fence on the Lithuanian side. "We have a seismic monitoring system that registers all strong vibrations that are prolonged", explains Rustamas Lyubaevas, head of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (VSAT), in an interview with DW. "Then we wait at the exit of the tunnel for them to finish digging it, and when the migrants come out, we detain them."
Around 40 migrants have already been detained in this way. The Lithuanian prosecutor's office confirmed to DW that an investigation is underway against about 20 people suspected of illegally digging a tunnel.
The head of the border guard is surprised by the fact that migrants are trying to cross the border underground: "Digging a tunnel requires enormous efforts, and migrants are detained practically immediately - in the best case, only a few manage to penetrate the territory of Lithuania".
Are the Belarusian authorities helping migrants reach Lithuania?
The complex construction of the tunnels makes him assume that the migrants are not acting independently: "They would not have been able to build them without material and technical support from the Belarusian authorities, since a lot of materials, such as wood, are needed to strengthen the walls of the tunnels". Minsk, Lyubaevas stressed, is clearly trying to "maintain a high level of tension along the border".
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko categorically denies any support for migration flows to neighboring countries. Meanwhile, similar tunnels for illegal border crossing by migrants have also been discovered in Poland. Political scientist Margarita Seselgyte, who is the director of the Institute of International Relations at Vilnius University, also believes that the tunnels could not have been dug without Minsk's knowledge. "Belarus guards its border very carefully", she says.
"Minsk is at least turning a blind eye to all tunneling activities near the border", Seselgyte said in an interview with DW. The expert believes that this is a "hybrid attack aimed at causing alarm in Lithuanian society". According to her, while Lithuania is trying to eliminate vulnerabilities and strengthen the fence along the border, Belarus is helping migrants pass under it.
A new stage of attack, in which migration is used as a weapon
Political scientist Seselgite believes that Minsk is supporting its close ally Moscow. Russia started the war in Ukraine in February 2022, partly using the territory of Belarus, where it had previously concentrated troops under the pretext of conducting military exercises.
"Lithuania is actively countering Russia at the EU and NATO levels - both against traditional military threats from Moscow and against hybrid ones. "Russia's main goal is probably to weaken support for Ukraine and undermine European unity," the Lithuanian political scientist believes.
Linas Kojala, director general of the Vilnius-based Geopolitical and Security Studies Center (GSSC), points out that the underground tunnels force border guards to work with all their might, even if only a small number of migrants penetrate through them. According to Kojala, these tunnels are "another stage in the attack that began in 2021, in which migration is used as a weapon".
It was then that tens of thousands of migrants from the territory of Belarus penetrated Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. The European Union has described these events as "using migrants as a tool to put pressure on the EU's external border", organized by Lukashenko.
"Since then, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania and other EU countries have been strengthening their external borders, which has helped us reduce illegal migration to a minimum," Linas Kojala stated in an interview with DW. In 2025, Lithuanian border guards registered 1,652 attempts to illegally enter the country.
To distract attention and increase tension
Robert Gonzi, an analyst at the Institute for Migration Studies in Budapest, believes that digging tunnels is a relatively cheap and not particularly risky method of putting pressure on other countries. "Since the 1950s, there have been numerous cases in which governments of different countries have created migration flows or manipulated them with their help," he notes in a written interview with DW. At the same time, Gontsi does not rule out the possibility that the tunnels recently discovered in Lithuania are being operated by independently operating networks of smugglers that the Belarusian authorities do not fully control.
In his opinion, Belarus and Russia are using migration as a weapon to "distract the West from Moscow's strategic agenda and create instability on NATO's eastern flank, increasing political and social tensions in European countries".
However, the countries on the eastern flank are successfully cooperating in countering Russian hybrid attacks. Lithuania is currently receiving technical support from neighboring EU member states. "We are testing Polish scanning equipment that can detect cavities underground. If it shows good results, we will purchase it and use it," said Rustamas Lyubaevas, head of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service.
Author: Lisa Louis