Roman Protasevich

With Poland, which already hosts a growing number of Belarusian exiles, immediately offering the 24-year-old sprinter a humanitarian visa, Timanovskaya took refuge in the Polish embassy in Tokyo until a flight to Warsaw could be arranged. Contrary to expectations, she didn't fly directly to Warsaw, but took a detour to the Austrian capital Vienna instead.

On the Turkish end, the NATO summit could not have come at a worse time.

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.

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.

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.

Detours taken by airlines to avoid entering Belarusian airspace following the forced landing of a Ryanair jet are responsible for around an extra 250,000 kg of CO2 emissions per day, air traffic management estimates show.

On average, EU and UK carriers must fly 40 nautical miles more to adhere to EU sanctions against Belarus, with most re-routing through the Baltic states.

Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Friday in a critical display of Moscow's support for Lukashenko's regime, a day after the UN civil aviation agency announced it would investigate Sunday's diversion of a Ryanair plane and the arrest of a journalist on board.

During a discussion on unresolved conflicts in the Eastern Partnership at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers (a.k.a. Gymnich meeting) held in Lisbon, Bulgarian caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs Svetlan Stoev said, quoted by his Ministry, that stability and security in the area of the Eastern Partnership are priorities for the Bulgarian government.

The parents of Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich and his fellow NEXTA founder Stsiapan Putsila appealed to Western governments at a press conference organised at the Belarusian House in Warsaw to step up efforts to save the life of the imprisoned 26-year-old.

The United States and western European members of the U.N. Security Council called on May 26 for the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to investigate Belarus' diversion of a European flight and arrest of a dissident on board.

Their call came hours after a defiant President Alexander Lukashenko on May 26 defended the action, lashing out at critics at home and abroad.