Home » Ryanair flight diverted to Minsk, the EU towards a no-fly zone over Belarus

Ryanair flight diverted to Minsk, the EU towards a no-fly zone over Belarus

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It will be the “Belarusian case” that will dominate the scene at the May 24 summit of the European Council, theoretically dedicated to the migration crisis. The hijacking of a Ryanair flight on the Vilnius-Athens line, forced to land in Minsk (Belarus) to allow the arrest of a journalist critical of Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, triggered heavy reactions on an international scale and led Brussels to move quickly.

The EU summoned the ambassador of Belarus to the Union, Aleksandr Mikhnevich, to “condemn the inadmissible step taken by the Belarusian authorities”. A decision that is a prelude to the sanctions already announced by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, in view of the meeting of the 27 on the evening of May 24: “The first item on the agenda of the European Council is Belarus, what is what happened yesterday is an international scandal – he said – we are working on sanctions that are on the summit table, the lives of European civilians have been endangered, it has been a threat to international security ».

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International reactions

The tightening of the EU seals a long series of responses to the hijacking by governments and international institutions. Italy and Germany have also summoned their respective Belarusian ambassadors to ask for an account of the episode. During the day, Lithuania, the country of departure of the plane, announced a ban on flying in the skies of Belarus, recalling all citizens living in the country. A move similar to that of the United Kingdom and France, while Poland asked for flights between the European Union and Belarus to be suspended outright. The US speaks of a “shocking act” and is calling for an international investigation

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Belarus: it was the commander’s choice

Belarus denied the allegations, blaming the deviation to a choice of the commander. According to the head of the Belarusian Air Force, it was the captain who decided to land the Ryanair scheduled flight in Minsk, “without external pressure”, after being warned of a bomb alert. “The decision was made by the crew commander without outside interference,” said Igor Goloub, commander of the air force. The decision, said the director of the aviation department of the Ministry of Transport, Artem Sikorsky, is attributable to a threatening e-mail from the Palestinian organization Hamas. “We, the Hamas soldiers, are calling for Israel to stop firing in Gaza and for the EU to renounce its support for Israel. Participants in the Delphi Economic Forum return home on Flight 4978. A bomb has been placed on this plane. If you don’t comply with our requests, it will explode over Vilnius, ”the e-mail read.

Russia, linked to Belarus, has also come under criticism and has rejected any charges against it. “It is shocking that the West considers the accident in Belarusian airspace” shocking “,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Facebook page, noting that Western countries have in the past been guilty of “kidnappings, forced landings and illegal arrests ». The Kremlin then specified not to rush to “support anyone”.

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