Minsk

The Council of Europe on Monday said several EU candidate countries in the Balkans had aligned themselves with the Council Decision to strengthen restrictive measures on Belarus by introducing a ban on the overflight of EU airspace and access to EU airports of Belarusian carriers of all kinds.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu will attend, on Monday, the meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU Member States (Foreign Affairs Council), which will take place in Luxembourg.

Echoing the forced landing of a Ryanair flight travelling between two EU member states and the arrest of political activist Roman Protasevich in Belarus, the European Parliament has called for further sanctions on the hardline regime in Minsk.

A top American diplomat told Congress on Wednesday that the Biden administration plans to impose additional sanctions on the authoritarian regime in Belarus — a significant step as lawmakers agitate for tougher punishments against a top ally of Vladimir Putin.

While EU sanctions against Belarusian officials are welcome, Russia's role should not be ignored by Brussels, argues Ilya Zaslavskiy. But targeting Kremlin cronies, rather than the Russian people, would be much fairer and far cheaper than putting an extra NATO brigade in Eastern Europe.

A Belarusian political activist stabbed himself in the neck on the first day of his trial on June 1 and was rushed to hospital, a rights group said.

Viasna, an independent rights group monitoring the trial of Stepan Latypov, said it believed the activist had tried to commit suicide following pressure in detention.

Only those who have permanent residence permits in a foreign country are allowed to leave the country. The opposition assessed it as "an absolute violation of the law".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has blamed the European Union for having suspended "the mutually beneficial architecture of cooperation" and for pushing to "shut Russia out," following a meeting with his Portuguese counterpart Augusto Santos Silva in Moscow.

Russia will extend temporary restrictions on flights to Turkey until June 21 due to the serious coronavirus situation there, the country's anti-coronavirus crisis center announced May 31. 

Meanwhile, flights between Moscow and the Belarusian capital of Minsk will be increased to up to 10 per week as of June 10, it said in a statement.

The UN civil aviation agency will hold an urgent meeting Thursday (27 May) to discuss Belarus after Western powers on the UN Security Council called for the body to investigate Minsk's diversion of a European flight and arrest of a dissident.