As of late evening on May 23, 2021, Belarusian opposition journalist Roman Protasevich is in KGB captivity, and Ryanair is failing to explain why, when it was closer to the Lithuanian border, it made an emergency landing in Minsk. Western countries are expressing outrage, but it remains to be seen whether Aleksander Lukashenko’s regime will face more than criticism. If not, then Lukashenko will know that, like his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, he can get away with state terrorism. The message to the world on this occasion will be especially ominous, as state operatives will have been allowed to hijack an international flight to abduct a journalist with political asylum in Poland. Impossible not to agree with Russian political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky, that “this is the last moment of truth for the West. If the Lukashenko regime is not immediately declared a terrorist organization, there is no West or Free world.”
Protests in Belarus
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Members of the Belarusian diaspora in Ukraine hold former white-red-white flags of their country and hold placards during a rally outside the Foreign Ministry in Kyiv on May 23, 2021, demanding from Ukrainian government to act for the release of detained journalist Roman Protasevich.
