Belarus strongman-President Alexander Lukashenko, 66, ordered his KGB security service to force down a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, claiming there was a credible bomb threat. Belarus Air Forces used a Russian-made Mig-19 flogger to force the Ryanair flight to land in Minsk, Bealarus, where 26-year-old “journalist” Roman Protasevich was promptly arrested. U.S., NATO and European Union [EU] decried the heavy-handed force-down of the Ryanair flight for the purpose of arresting Proptasevich, considered a seditious revolutionary to the Belarus government. Protasevich runs a social media “news channel” NEXTA with which to generate a nationwide insurrection against the Lukashenko government. Protasevich is to Belarus what 44-year-old Alexi Navalny is to Russia, until his Jan. 14 arrest and March 2 incarceration in a Russian penal colony.
There’s no better way to understand Protasevich than to see the parallel with Navalny, someone who ran a clandestine organization in Russia with the goal of toppling 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Navalny, who’s worked for 20 years to topple Putin’s government, was allegedly poisoned with Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in August 2020, spending four months recovering in Germany, only to return to Moscow and face arrest Jan. 14. When it comes to Protasevich, he’s considred by the Belarus state and enemy of the state for his subversive activities working feverishly to topple Lukashenko’s pro-Kremlin government. European Commission President Ursual von der Leyeen, 62, slammed Lukashenko for forcing down the Ryanair jet. EU and U.S. officials want to sanction Belarus for dealing with a known subversive seeking to overthrow the Minsk government.
When it comes to Navalny, the U.S. and EU hasn’t stopped criticizing Putin for persecuting Russia’s best-known Russian dissident, hoping to achieve what the West can’t accomplish by military force: Forcing Russia to adopt a Western-style democracy. “The outrageous and illegal behavior of the regime in Belarus will have consequences. Those responsible for the #Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned. Journalist Roman Protasevich must be released immediate,” von der Leyen demanded. Those were the same demands made by von der Leyen and President Joe Biden for Navalny. Democrats in the House of Representative charged former President Donald Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” trying to convict him in the U.S. Senate for a second time. Trump was acquitted Feb. 13 for “incitement of insurrection.” Had Democrats or the press had their way, Trump would have been arrested.
Yet when it comes to known insurgents in Belarus and the Russian Federation von der Leyen supports all their subversive activity. “It’s is shock that the West calls the incident in Belarusian airspace ‘shocking,” Foreign Minister spokeswoman Marcia Zakharova wrote in Facebook. “Either [they] should be shocked by . . . the forced [landing] in Austria of the Bolivian president’s plane at the request of the United States . .. Or [they] should not be shocked by similar behavior of others,” Zakharova said, rejecting U.S. criticism. Von der Leyen called the forced landing a “hijacking” by the place was free to continue its journey to Vilnius with one less passenger. U.S. or EU officials routinely remove known criminals and fugitives from flights if they’re able to do so. U.S. officials has no such luck June 23, 2013 when cyber-criminal Edward Snowden fled from Honolulu to Hong Kong.
Calling the plane “hijacked,” Western officials accused Lukashenko of state-sponsored terrorism, exaggerating what happened, Lukashenko sought the extra-judicial action because Protasevich was a knowN criminal on Belarus’ Most Wanted List. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawecki said Lukashenk “hijacked” the Ryanair flight in a “reprehensible act of state terrorism.” Ireland’s 60-year-old Prime Minister Micheal Martin called Lukashenko’s acts “unprecedented,” promising to take it up a EU Foreign Minister Meeting. Calling the forced landing “dangerous and abhorrent,” U.S. Belarus Amb. Julie Fisher guaranteed that U.S.-Belarus relations sink to new lows. Once the Ryanair jet diverted to Misnk, one passenger reported that Protasevich panicked realizing that he faced arrest once the plane landed. Protasevich was placed on a terrorist watch list with a warrant for his arrest due to nationwide protests last summer.
Belarus government said that Protasevich organized some 2 million anti-Lukashenko protesters last summer, subscribing to his NEXTA social network news site. NEXTA was no different that Navalny’s subversive group in Russia designed to topple Putin’s 22-year reign of power. Charges against Protasevich for organizing illegal mass protests and riots carry a charge of 10 to 15 years in prison. Von der Leyen and Biden may see Navalny and Protasevich as heroes but to Russia and Belarus they’re considered dangerous insurgents worse than Trump. When in Athens, Protasevch reportedly met with Belarus exiled pro-democracy leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. U.S. and EU reactions to Protasevich arrest further divides Belarus and Russia from the Western Alliance, causing a potentially irreparable rift. U.S. and EU officials should stop meddling in Russia and Belarus internal affairs.
