Context: On Monday morning, June 15, 2026, Semyon Skrepetsky, a Russian performance artist known for his cartoons and protests against the Russian government, was shot dead in Biała Podlaska, Poland. He staged a protest outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin three days before the murder. Shortly before his death, he claimed that Russian patriots were threatening him. Police have detained a suspect in the murder: a Georgian citizen.
On June 16, 2026, the First News Channel* reported on another criminal case involving Poland: the smuggling of cigarettes from Belarus. The host stated that a recent trial had proven that Poles, not Belarusians, were behind the smuggling.
“A sensational exposé. The Regional Court in Białystok found three men guilty of smuggling cigarettes from Belarus to Poland using weather balloons. <...> Thus, the loud attempts by European officials to blame the Belarusian side for border incidents have been undermined by the findings of their own judicial system. Court records clearly show that Polish citizens themselves are orchestrating the criminal schemes taking place near the Belarusian border,” the host said.
Indeed, the court in Białystok convicted three Polish citizens, aged 22 to 26, in a case involving the smuggling of cigarettes from Belarus via weather balloons. Two received conditional sentences, while the third was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. However, the host failed to mention that Belarusians were also involved in this scheme. This was established in court.
On June 9, 2026, a Radio Białystok reporter covered the trial from the courtroom:
“One of the defendants had partnered with a Belarusian who had sent him location tags indicating where to pick up the shipment. The defendant explained that he needed money at the time. It was easy money — he earned 1,000 zlotys for each trip.”
In other words, the Pole served as the courier, while the Belarusian coordinated the delivery of the cigarettes and provided the shipment coordinates. Although he didn’t end up in the dock, his role in the case has been documented. This is not the only case in which Belarusian citizens have been implicated in cigarette smuggling involving weather balloons.
In June, Polish border guards detained a 36-year-old Belarusian man in Lipsk. He had come to Poland on a work visa, but he never found a job. The man was detained alongside a 22-year-old Polish man while they were attempting to retrieve smuggled cigarettes that had crossed the border via weather balloons.
In April, the prosecutor’s office in Lublin filed charges against Mikhail S., a Belarusian citizen. He is accused of organizing cigarette smuggling. Investigators say that he and his accomplices used 160 balloons to smuggle over 24,000 cartons of cigarettes into Poland.
* The First News Channel is another name for News.by, a news outlet owned by Belteleradiocompany.
