On June 3, Belarusian TV showed an interview with Roman Protasevich, captured by Belarusian intelligence services after the forceful landing of the RyanAir aircraft en route from Athens to Vilnius (YouTube, June 3; EDM, May 24). This 96-minute-long interview was extracted from four-and-a-half-hour of footage. Much of what was not aired is subject to investigation, according to the interviewer Marat Markov, whose subtle and at times smarmy style, far detached from that of cookie-cutter ideological crusaders, created a semblance of objectivity.
Protests in Belarus
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Grigory Ioffe: What did Protasevich’s interview reveal?
A demonstrator holds up a paper plane with the lettering 'Free Belarus' and 'Free Roman Protasevich' during a demonstration of Belarusians living in Poland and Poles supporting them in front of European Commission office demanding freedom for Belarus opposition activist Roman Protasevich in Warsaw, May 24, 2021, a day after a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying the dissident journalist was diverted while in Belarusian airspace.
