Putin offers Belarus’ Lukashenko support against West over journalist’s arrest
- Roman Protasevich was taken into custody after his Ryanair flight was forced down by Belarus, and now faces up to 15 years in jail
- Many European nations have imposed flight bans on Belarusian aviation and the EU is weighing further sanctions
The West has accused Belarus of piracy after Belarusian air traffic control on Sunday informed the Ryanair pilot of a hoax bomb threat and Minsk scrambled a MiG-29 fighter plane to escort the aircraft down, and then arrested Roman Protasevich, a blogger and critic of Lukashenko, along with his girlfriend.
Both are now languishing in jail. Accused of orchestrating mass riots, Protasevich could be jailed for up to 15 years.
But Putin, a close ally of Lukashenko, gave his support to Lukashenko, warmly welcoming him for talks in the southern Russian city of Sochi and agreeing with Lukashenko that the West‘s reaction to the incident was “an outburst of emotion”.
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“At one time they forced the Bolivian president‘s plane to land and took him out of the plane and nothing, silence,” said Putin, referring to a 2013 incident in which Evo Morales’ plane was forced to land in Austria at a time when the United States was trying to intercept whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
The talks in the Black Sea city of Sochi were organised before the plane incident, but come after many European nations have imposed flight bans on Belarusian aviation and the EU is weighing further sanctions.