Smuggling balloons land across Białystok and Podlaskie, Poland

On the evening of December 24, 2025, AirVeto’s wind field over eastern Poland showed air moving from Belarus into the Podlaskie region at 3,000 m, across the area north of Białystok.

From December 24, Podlaskie police logged four reports of balloon-borne cigarette packages, at Goniądz, Boguszewo, Zaborowo and Łozowo, Radio Białystok and Podlaskie24 reported; at Łozowo only the cigarettes were found. Poland's Operational Command assessed the objects as smuggling balloons, and part of the region's airspace was temporarily closed.

Goniądz lies about 61 km west of the nearest point on AirVeto's outline of the Belarusian border. At the 29 km/h flow from the east-northeast that AirVeto's wind data shows at 3,000 m, that straight line is about two hours of drift. It is a minimum: the balloons' launch points and flight altitude are not public.

What AirVeto showed at the time

At 22:00 UTC on December 24, AirVeto's wind layer at 3,000 m showed air over the Podlaskie region coming from between the north-east and the east. Near Białystok it came from the east-northeast at about 29 km/h, moving west-southwest. Speeds across the Podlaskie region ranged from 24 to 38 km/h, arriving from NE to E, with the flow pushing more directly west toward the south of the region.

Wind parameter	Value
Altitude	3,000 m
Time	22:00 UTC, December 24, 2025
Direction, near Białystok	Pushing west-southwest, arriving from the east-northeast (Belarus)
Speed, near Białystok	~29 km/h
Direction range (from), Podlaskie grid	36°–91° (NE to E)
Speed range, Podlaskie grid	24–38 km/h
Source	Open-Meteo historical-forecast-api

How AirVeto models that field, its data sources and its known limits are set out on the methodology page. This reconstruction is based on reporting by TVN24, Radio Białystok, and Podlaskie24, and on AirVeto's wind-model analysis for the 22:00–06:00 UTC event window on December 24–25, 2025.

Related incidents

It is the earliest Polish balloon incident in AirVeto's archive, on the Polish–Belarusian border. Later balloon incidents, including the January 28, 2026 Vilnius Airport incursion, are collected in the incident archive. Polish-side smuggling-balloon incidents and the wind context behind them are collected at Balony przemytnicze.