Belarus forces Ryanair aircraft certain for Vilnius to land, infuriating Lithuania

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a Ryanair flight headed for Lithuania and carrying a younger opposition blogger to land in Belarus on Sunday and detained him on arrival, prompting Lithuania to name for a NATO response.
Law enforcers detained activist Roman Protasevich, 26, who had been placed on a needed checklist after final yr’s mass avenue protests following an election during which Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory.
The plane, flying from Athens to Vilnius, had nearly reached Lithuania when it modified course and was escorted to the Belarusian capital of Minsk amid studies that it had explosives on board, in line with a web based flight tracker and BelTA. Lukashenko personally ordered the warplane to escort the Boeing to Minsk, state information company BelTA reported.
No explosives had been discovered, it mentioned.Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda condemned Belarus’s actions, demanding Protasevich be launched and calling on for a world response.
“I call on NATO and EU allies to immediately react to the threat posed to international civil aviation by the Belarus regime. The international community must take immediate steps that this does not repeat,” Nauseda mentioned.
Lithuanian presidential adviser Asta Skaisgiryte mentioned the operation to force-land the aircraft carrying round 170 folks from 12 nations gave the impression to be pre-planned. She mentioned Belarus intelligence providers knew who was onboard the aircraft, which was pressured to land with the assistance of MIG-29 fighter jet.
Protasevich had lived in Vilnius since November, she mentioned.
Lithuania and conventional Russian ally Belarus are neighbours and former members of the Soviet Union. Lithuania is now a member of the European Union, Belarus just isn’t.
A Lithuanian airport authority spokeswoman informed Reuters the aircraft, scheduled to land in Vilnius earlier on Sunday, was now anticipated to land at 1500 GMT or later. Ryanair had no quick remark. The Belarus division for organised crime management additionally reported that Protasevich had been detained however then deleted the assertion from its Telegram channel.
In energy since 1994, Lukashenko launched a violent crackdown on the 2020 avenue protests. Around 35,000 folks have been detained since August, human rights teams say. Dozens have acquired jail phrases. Authorities say that greater than 1,000 felony circumstances have been launched.
Protasevich is likely one of the founders of the opposition information service NEXTA, a Telegram channel that has turn out to be one of many essential sources of stories about demonstrations in Belarus.
It is hostile to Lukashenko and helps to coordinate protests. Belarusian opposition politician Svetlana Tikhanouskaya, Lukashenko’s essential rival on the final election, mentioned Belarus authorities “placed at risk safety of passengers on board and all of the civil aviation for the sake of punishment of the man who was an editor of Belarus’s largest independent Telegram channel”.