Airlines Shun Belarusian Airspace as Calls for Sanctions over Plane Diversion Grow

“I welcome the news that the European Union has called for targeted economic sanctions and other measures, and have asked my team to develop appropriate options to hold accountable those responsible, in close coordination with the European Union, other allies and partners, and international organizations,” Biden said.

Johnson said on Twitter on May 25 that the video of Pratasevich “makes for deeply distressing viewing. As a journalist and a passionate believer in freedom of speech, I call for his immediate release,” Johnson said.

“Belarus’s actions will have consequences,” the British leader added.

EU leaders on May 24 agreed at a summit to impose fresh economic sanctions on Belarus and called on the bloc’s airlines to avoid the Eastern European country’s skies and moved to ban Belarusian airlines from EU airspace and airports.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 25 demanded that the dissident and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, be released immediately.

“We discussed this issue very intensively and we all agreed it was an unprecedented and unacceptable act,” Merkel said after the EU summit in Brussels.

“We ask Belarus to release both immediately.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also called on Belarus to immediately release Pratasevich and Sapega.

Both Pratasevich and Sapega “should be allowed to continue to their intended destination in Lithuania,” spokesman Rupert Colville told a virtual briefing in Geneva on May 25.

“The manner, through threat of military force, in which Pratasevich was abducted from the jurisdiction of another state and brought within that of Belarus was tantamount to an extraordinary rendition,” Colville said. “Such abuse of state power against a journalist for exercising functions that are protected under international law is receiving, and deserves, the strongest condemnation.”

In a video statement, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called for both an “urgent international investigation” into the incident and the release of Pratasevich and his companion.

“This is a state hijacking and demonstrates how the regime in Minsk attacks basic democratic rights and cracks down on freedom of expression and independent media,” Stoltenberg said.

Pratasevich is facing charges of being behind civil disturbances, an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

“This outrageous incident and the video Mr. Pratasevich appears to have made under duress are shameful assaults on both political dissent and the freedom of the press. The United States joins countries around the world in calling for his release, as well as for the release of the hundreds of political prisoners who are being unjustly detained” in Belarus, Biden said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on May 25 that Sapega was being held on suspicion of “committing crimes” between August and September 2020, the period when the postelection protests began. Sapega is a Russian citizen.

Earlier on May 25, the Russian state news agency TASS quoted Sapega’s father as saying that as of the previous evening, an attorney representing his daughter had not been able to meet with her.

Zakharova said a court hearing should be held within three days of Sapega’s arrest to decide whether she should be released or held in pretrial detention.

“We expect to receive permission for a consular meeting with S.A. Sapega in the very near future,” she added.

The EU, United States, and other Western countries have already imposed sanctions against the regime of Lukashenka, who has led a violent crackdown on dissent in the country since mass protests broke out over the disputed results of the presidential election in August 2020.

More than 30,000 people have been detained, hundreds beaten or tortured, and journalists targeted in the move by Lukashenka to suppress dissent.

The Belarusian opposition and the West say the elections were fraudulent and don’t recognize the result. The opposition says Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to neighboring Lithuania after the election due to concerns about her safety, was the true winner of the vote.

U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with Tsikhanouskaya on May 24 to express U.S. support for the democratic opposition and reiterated calls for the release of hundreds of Belarusian political prisoners, the White House said in a separate statement.

The statement said the United States would hold the Lukashenka regime to account for the Ryanair incident and human rights abuses, as well as continue to demand free and fair elections to resolve the country’s political crisis.

Belarusian state media have reported that Lukashenka personally ordered the flight to be intercepted. Belarus says it was responding to a bomb scare that later proved to be a false alarm.

The UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization has said the incident may have violated the foundational treaty governing international civil aviation, the 1944 Chicago Convention.

In response to the incident, several airlines have announced a suspension of their flights over Belarusian airspace.

Air France, Finnair, and Singapore Airlines were among the latest carriers to suspend flights over Belarus on May 25, a day after European Union leaders called on the bloc’s aviation industry to avoid the Eastern European country’s skies and moved to ban Belarusian airlines from EU airspace and airports.

Ukraine’s government said the country’s airlines were no longer allowed to transit through Belarusian airspace and that flights to and from Belarus would be banned from May 26.

EU leaders have directed officials to draw up unspecified new sanctions against Minsk and to work out a way to ban Belarusian airlines from the bloc’s skies.

If all such measures are fully implemented, Belarus would be almost completely isolated from air travel, with flights reaching it only by passing over its eastern border with Lukashenka’s close ally, Russia.

“If we let this go, tomorrow Alyaksandr Lukashenka will go further and do something even more arrogant, more cruel,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement.

This article is reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).