International anger has grown over the detention of an opposition Belarusian journalist, after the Ryanair plane he was travelling on was forced to land. Ryanair flight FR4978 was travelling from the Greek capital, Athens, to Vilnius in Lithuania on Sunday afternoon. Passengers said the journey had been calm and the plane had begun its gradual descent to Vilnius when it made an abrupt change of course.
Belarusian transport ministry, air traffic controllers told the pilot at 09:30 GMT – “you have bomb on board and it can be activated over Vilnius”. Even though the plane was closer to Vilnius than the Belarus capital, the pilot was told to divert to Minsk. At 09:47 the pilot declared an emergency.
The plane then landed at 10:16 GMT (13:16 local time) to Minsk airport. A military MiG jet escorted the plane to the airport. When the plane’s 126 passengers disembarked, police arrested Mr Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.
Leading opposition figure Pavel Latushko alleged Belarus had threatened to shoot down the plane before landing. Belarus later claimed the flight had been diverted because of a bomb threat from Hamas, but the Palestinian militant group denied any involvement.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Wednesday a journalist pulled off a plane that was forced to land in Minsk had been plotting a rebellion, and he accused the West of waging a “hybrid war” against him. In his first public remarks since a Belarusian warplane intercepted a Ryanair flight on Sunday, European Union members Greece and Lithuania, he showed no hint of backing down from confrontation with countries that accuse him of air piracy.
Belarus has been subject to EU and U.S. sanctions since Lukashenko cracked down on pro-democracy protests after a disputed election last year. But his decision to intercept an international airliner in Belarusian airspace and arrest a 26-year-old dissident journalist has brought vows of much more serious action.
In his speech to parliament, Lukashenko gave no details of the “bloody rebellion” he accused journalist Roman Protasevich of planning.
Europe’s aviation regulator issued a bulletin on Wednesday urging all airlines to avoid Belarus airspace for safety reasons, saying the forced diversion of the Ryanair flight had put in question its ability to provide safe skies. Western governments have told their airlines to re-route flights to avoid Belarus’s airspace and have announced plans to ban Belarusian planes. The European Union said other unspecified sanctions are also in the works.
Landlocked Belarus is located between its ally Russia and the EU, and some Russian oil and gas flows through it. Last year, it retaliated for sanctions by limiting some oil export traffic through a port in Lithuania.
Western powers are seeking ways to increase the isolation of Lukashenko, who has previously shrugged off Western sanctions, which mostly consisted of placing officials on black lists. The West is wary of upsetting Moscow, which regards Belarus as a strategically important buffer.
U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss the incident with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit next month according to the White House statement.
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