Ukraine has suspended air travel with Belarus and ordered Ukrainian airlines and planes to avoid Belarusian airspace, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal announced on May 25, after Belarus diverted a passenger plane to arrest a dissident onboard.
The decision will take effect at midnight on May 26.
The State Border Guard Service has also been instructed to stop the registration of passengers traveling from Belarus or to Belarus at airport customs checkpoints in Ukraine.
“Belarusian authorities stop at nothing in persecuting dissenters. Even its airspace is unsafe now,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “Ukraine has always been interested in a democratic Belarus where human rights are respected.”
Swift measures came after Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko on May 23 ordered a Ryanair passenger plane flying from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk to arrest journalist Roman Protasevich, who was aboard, along with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
Lukashenko personally ordered an MiG-29 jet fighter to escort the civilian aircraft, as authorities in Belarus cited what turned out to be a false bomb threat from Hamas. The plane was nearly at the border with Lithuania when Belarusian air traffic control instructed the plane to divert to Minsk, according to Ryanair.
A map of the Ryanair 4978 flight which was diverted by Belarusian authorities to arrest a dissident journalist Roman Protasevich onboard.
Protasevich is a co-founder of Telegram messaging app’s NEXTA channel, which was a primary independent news source in Belarus during widespread demonstrations last year to overturn a presidential election in August that Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler since 1994, falsified.
Telegram channels were among the only online media outlets that couldn’t be blocked by Lukashenko’s government during the protest, so NEXTA played a key role in coordinating demonstrations, warning people of police presence, and calling to action.
Last year, Protasevich and NEXTA’s second co-founder Stepan Svetlov were put on Belarus’s list of “individuals involved in terrorist activity” list.
Protasevich is now facing up to 15 years in prison on extremism charges for organizing the protests. Him and Sapega were reported to be in Okrestina, a notorious prison in Minsk where thousands have been tortured, beaten, and raped during the protests.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called the incident a “state-sponsored terror act,” and expelled all Belarusian diplomats, including its ambassador.
British foreign secretary described the incident as a “reckless, cynical and dangerous hijacking of a Ryanair flight by Belarus government.”
Leaders of the European Union responded with sanctions. The EU banned Belarusian state air carrier Belavia from the bloc’s airspace and called on European airlines to avoid overflight of Belarus. Lufthansa, KLM, LOT, Wizzair, AirFrance, British Airways, KlasJet, Singapore Airlines, Finnair, Austrian Airlines, Avia Solutions, airBaltic, and Scandinavian Airlines have all suspended flights over and into Belarus.
