Belarus Hijacked Ryanair Passenger Plane to Arrest Lukashenko’s Critic

Belarus has been accused of "hijacking" a civilian airliner by forcing a Ryanair passenger flight to land in the country using a fake bomb threat so that authorities could arrest a prominent critic of its authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

The Ryanair flight was passing through Belarus' airspace while traveling from Athens to Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, when it was diverted to Minsk for an emergency landing because of the phony bomb threat. A Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was sent to intercept the plane and escorted it to the airport. On the ground, security agents arrested Roman Protasevich, founder of the social media news channel NEXTA, which played a crucial role in the protests last summer.

The extraordinary move triggered a furious reaction from European countries, which have accused Lukashenko of forcing down a European airliner as part of a pre-planned operation to seize Protasevich.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, called it "utterly unacceptable" and warned that those responsible must be sanctioned.

"The outrageous and illegal behaviour of the regime in Belarus will have consequences. Those responsible for the #Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned. Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediately," von der Leyen wrote on Twitter, saying a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday would discuss what actions to take.

Other countries, including France and Britain, lined up to condemn Belarus' actions, and there were mounting calls for punitive steps to be taken against Lukashenko.

Poland's prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the Ryanair flight had been "hijacked" and condemned it as a "reprehensible act of state terrorism". Micheál Martin, prime minister of Ireland...