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European leaders expressed outrage after Belarus on Sunday forced a Ryanair flight between two EU capitals to land in Minsk and arrested an anti-government activist on board.
EU leaders will discuss the case at a summit Monday, European Council President Charles Michel said in a statement, adding: “The incident will not remain without consequences.” His spokesman said “possible sanctions” would be on the table.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen branded the Belarusian operation that diverted the flight en route from Athens to Vilnius a “hijacking.”
“The outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus will have consequences,” she tweeted on Sunday night, demanding the immediate release of activist and journalist Roman Protasevich.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the incident was “an unprecedented act of state terrorism” that could not go unpunished; the airliner is registered in Poland.
A senior EU official said heads of state and government would contemplate an array of potential punitive measures against Alexander Lukashenko and his government in addition to levying additional sanctions and calling for an investigation by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Such steps could include banning Belavia, the state-owned Belarusian national airline, from landing in EU airports; suspending all flights of EU airlines through Belarusian airspace; and suspending all transit, including ground transit from Belarus into the EU, the senior official said. Some EU airlines on Monday were already avoiding flying over Belarus.
Exiled Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Twitter that Protasevich faces the death penalty. She demanded his immediate release, as well as a United Nations investigation and sanctions against the government of Lukashenko.
Belarus’ official Belta news agency reported that a plane had been diverted, but did not mention an arrest. It did, however, report that the order for the plane to land was given by Lukashenko.
While boarding the plane in Athens, Protasevich noticed he was being photographed by “dodgy-looking people,” wrote Tadeusz Giczan, editor-in-chief of Protasevich’s employer Nexta, a news channel on the Telegram app that late last year was ruled “extremist” by a Belarusian court.
Giczan said those taking the photographs were agents from Belarus’ intelligence agency and that when the plane entered Belarusian airspace, the security operatives “initiated a fight with the Ryanair crew,” insisted there was an explosive device on board and forced the crew to send a distress signal.
Giczan added that a fighter jet then escorted the plane to Minsk airport, where security services boarded the plane and arrested Protasevich — who left the country in 2019 to work for Nexta. The Belarus defense ministry said the decision to send the jet was taken “after the commander of this civilian vessel made a decision to land at an alternate airfield.”
The Ryanair plane was closer to Vilnius than to Minsk before being diverted.
Ryanair CEO Michal O’Leary told POLITICO that the forced landing was “a state-sponsored hijacking,” blaming the KGB, the Belarusian security services that still use the Soviet-era name.
“It was clear that the intent of the Belarusian authorities was to remove a journalist and his traveling companion. We believe some KGB agents were offloaded from the aircraft as well,” he said.
In a statement, Ryanair said the flight crew were notified by air traffic control in Belarus “of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk.”
“Nothing untoward was found and authorities cleared the aircraft to depart together with passengers and crew after approx. 5hrs on the ground.”
Pavel Latushko, a Belarusian opposition leader, tweeted that two Belarusian citizens and four Russians were not aboard the plane when it took off again.
A spokesman for the Lithuanian government said the Ryanair plane landed in Vilnius at around 10 p.m. local time.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauséda told reporters at the European Council on Monday that 123 people were on board the plane. (The Lithuanian government had previously given different figures but revised these on Monday.)
Protasevich and his girlfriend, a Russian national who studied at the European Humanities University in Vilnius, were among the passengers not arriving in the Lithuanian capital, the Lithuanian government spokesperson said.
On Monday, Belarus’ foreign ministry insisted that the country had acted correctly to deal with a threat to the airplane. “We are sorry that the passengers of the flight faced certain inconveniences. But the aviation safety rules are an absolute priority, everywhere and for everyone,” it said, adding that the Western response was “astonishing” and that, “The situation is deliberately politicized, with unsupported accusations and name-calling.”
International criticism
There was swift condemnation of the Belarusian action.
Morawiecki was one of several EU leaders to say that he had asked for a discussion on sanctions against Belarus at the EU summit.
The bloc has already brought three sets of sanctions in the wake of the August 2020 presidential election, which was officially won by Lukashenko with 80 percent of the vote. The outcome was widely condemned as fraudulent and it sparked huge protests across Belarus that led to a fierce crackdown by forces loyal to Lukashenko, with thousands arrested and at least four killed.
Michel, who will chair the EU summit, said he condemned the action “in the strongest possible terms,” and called on Belarusian authorities “to immediately release the detained passenger and to fully guarantee his rights.”
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda described it as an “unprecedented event” and said the Belarusian “regime is behind the abhorrent action.”
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told RTÉ on Monday that the incident was “aviation piracy, state-sponsored. An Irish airline, a plane that’s registered in Poland, full of EU nationals, traveling between two EU capitals, flying through Belarusian airspace.” He added: “The EU has to give a very clear response to it, otherwise we’re giving all the wrong signals.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement: “The United States strongly condemns the forced diversion of a flight between two EU member states and the subsequent removal and arrest of journalist Raman Pratasevich in Minsk.” He added: “We demand his immediate release.”
“This shocking act,” Blinken said, “perpetrated by the [Lukashenko] regime endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens. Initial reports suggesting the involvement of the Belarusian security services and the use of Belarusian military aircraft to escort the plane are deeply concerning and require full investigation.”
The Greek foreign ministry released a statement calling the forced landing “state hijacking” that “has put in danger the lives of all the passengers on board.”
“The forced landing of a commercial plane to detain a journalist is an unprecedented, shocking act,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis posted on Twitter. “Tomorrow’s EUCO [European Council] must address the need to step up pressure on Belarus. Enough is enough.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement: “The diversion by Belarusian authorities of a Ryanair flight is unacceptable. A firm and united response by Europeans is indispensable. All passengers of this flight, including potential Belarusian opposition figures, have to be allowed to leave Belarus without delay.”
Former European Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter that Lukashenko “has become a threat not only to his own citizens but also to international security. His act of state terrorism demands an immediate and tough reaction of all European governments and institutions.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a Facebook post that she was “shocked” by the Western response to the forced landing, calling out past incidents where aircraft had been diverted.
Nikolai Kalashnikov, the head of the Russian Duma committee on post-Soviet affairs, defended Belarus in a comment Monday to the Ria news agency: “This is an independent state. If they see a threat to their security, then they are obliged to fight this threat.”
David M. Herszenhorn, Nektaria Stamouli, Rym Momtaz and Shawn Pogatchnik contributed reporting.
This article has been updated with comment from Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary and from Belarus and Russia.
