Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is known for spreading outrageous lies to cover for his gross violations of human rights in a country he’s held in his grip since 1994.
But when he ordered the hijacking of a passenger plane to seize a journalist that criticized him, Europe decided it’s finally had enough.
Ukraine and the European Union have banned Belarus from their airspace, advised airlines to avoid flying over Belarus and are ready to move forward with tougher sanctions to punish the rogue regime.
On May 23, a Ryanair flight passing over Belarus en route from Athens to Vilnius was intercepted by a Belarusian fighter jet. Belarusian authorities falsely claimed that the passenger plane had a bomb on it. Despite being 10 minutes from the Lithuanian border, the plane was forced to turn around and land in Minsk, where it was raided by Belarusian KGB agents.
Belarus authorities created the fake threat to kidnap prominent Belarusian journalist Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
“This was a case of state-sponsored hijacking… state-sponsored piracy,” said Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair.
Lukashenko blamed the incident on the Islamist militant group Hamas, later saying that the flight was targeting Belarus’s nuclear power plant. Europe was having none of it.
On May 24, the European Council announced that it will ban Belarus’s state-owned airline Belavia from entering European airspace and promised economic sanctions.
“The hijacking of the Ryanair plane by the Belarus regime is an attack on democracy. An attack on freedom of expression. An attack on European sovereignty,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, after the meeting.
Von der Leyen promised more sanctions to follow.
Ukraine banned all flights to and from Belarus, effectively cutting the country off from the democratic world starting May 26.
Still, Lukashenko is holding strong.
While he’s an outcast in Europe, he remains a welcome guest in Russia, where he’s expected to meet President Vladimir Putin on May 28.
Belarus shares a 1,239-kilometer border with Russia, which has promised to keep Lukashenko’s regime afloat. Russia has invested financially and politically into Belarus and is now keen to maintain the pariah state in its grip.
“Russia, of course, will not leave Belarus in trouble,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Indeed, Russia has already started supporting its ally. When Air France and Austrian Airlines planes tried to enter Russia by flying around Belarus, they were denied entry.
Mad abduction
When Belarusian authorities ordered the Ryanair flight to land, their only goal appeared to have been the abduction of Protasevich.
The journalist co-founded the NEXTA Telegram channel, which served as a primary independent news source in Belarus during last year’s demonstrations seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election, rigged by Lukashenko, the country’s authoritarian ruler since 1994.
After Protasevich and Sapega were abducted from the plane, a video of Protasevich was published by a low-profile Telegram channel linked to Lukashenko on May 25.
In the video, the journalist “confesses” to being involved in organizing mass protests in Belarus, which began after Lukashenko was crowned the winner of a rigged presidential election in August.
The journalist’s statement appears to have been extracted under duress.
“It’s likely his nose is broken because the shape of it has changed and there’s a lot of powder on it,” Protasevich’s father Dmitry Protasevich told Reuters. “I think he was forced (to confess).”
A day later, a similar video involving Sapega appeared.
To justify grounding the plane, Lukashenko issued false, easily disprovable statements.
Authorities in Belarus claimed they were responding to a bomb threat from Hamas. They later faked an email to back up their claims. Yet the fake email was sent 24 minutes after the Minsk air control tower ordered the plane to land in Minsk, citing bomb threats.
Hamas publicly denied involvement.
Europe’s tough stand
The international community is well aware that Lukashenko falsified election results and tortured his political opponents in prison.
But when he hijacked the plane, he appeared to have crossed a red line for Europe, causing it to react with unprecedented toughness.
Read More: Lukashenko falsifies election, declares war on Belarusians
Air travel over Belarus was halted, sanctions are in the works and calls for Lukashenko to go have intensified.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the incident “an act of state terrorism.”
According to von der Leyen, the EU will sanction individuals involved in the hijacking, businesses that finance Lukashenko’s regime and Belarus’s aviation sector. Belavia has been banned from entering the sky over Europe. Belarus is expected to lose at least $50–70 million in tariffs after turning into a European no-fly zone.
“We have a 3 billion euro economic and investment package ready to go for Belarus, when it becomes democratic,” von der Leyen said.
According to Rikard Jozwiak, an editor at Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, “the sanctions package on Belarus should be adopted in June. Listings of people responsible for the forced landing of the Ryanair flight should also be done then.”
“Sectoral sanctions will probably take a bit longer, but the aim is to have it done before the EU summer break in August,” he added.
Ukraine in the middle
Ukraine’s response came even faster — the country condemned Belarusian authorities and banned flights over Belarus starting May 26.
“Belarusian authorities will stop at nothing to persecute dissenters. Even its airspace is unsafe now,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “Ukraine has always been interested in a democratic Belarus where human rights are respected.”
On the same day, Ukraine banned electricity imports from Russia and Belarus until Oct. 1.
While not directly tied to the recent events, electricity imports were one of Belarus’s main exports to Ukraine, the other being oil products, mostly diesel.
Ukraine remains heavily dependent on energy products from Belarus and Russia and it is unlikely that Ukraine will sever all economic ties with its rogue neighbor.
In the first quarter of 2021, Ukraine exported $306 million worth of goods to Belarus and received $863.7 million worth of goods in return.
More than half of Ukraine’s import was oil products. Belarus controls 35.4% of Ukraine’s diesel market and Russia controls an additional 30%. Shutting down imports would cause a substantial deficit.
Less vital, yet still crucial, are electricity imports.
Valery Tarasyuk, head of the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission, said that Ukraine may resume electricity imports from Belarus in October.
After restarting the import of electricity from the two countries in 2019, the regulator halted imports again in April 2020. However, the regulator lifted the ban in December, due to winter power shortages.
Cornered dictator
Despite economic and political pressure from the West, Lukashenko’s totalitarian regime remains out of Europe’s reach, as it’s heavily propped up by Putin’s Russia.
Lukashenko is expected to meet Putin on May 28.
“We’ll (discuss) economic questions, how to move forward so that our economy doesn’t crumble,” said Lukashenko before the meeting.
Even before the rigged August election, Russia was Belarus’ main debt holder and had been responsible for over 40% of direct investments in the country.
Russia has supported Belarus’ regime by supplying it with cheap oil and gas, which Belarus refined and sold to the EU and Ukraine.
Russia has also issued loans to Belarus, which it never paid back.
In September 2020, a month after Lukashenko falsified presidential elections and tortured protesters, Russia provided Lukashenko with a new $1.5 billion loan.
Read More: Belarus opposition leader Tikhanovskaya: Moscow must withdraw support for Lukashenko
In 2017, an International Monetary Fund report concluded that the Belarusian economy gets $9 billion in direct and indirect aid per year from Russia, keeping the country afloat.
In recent months, the assistance has increased, despite Belarus’s growing number of political prisoners.
Sapega, who is a Russian citizen, was abducted from the plane and is being kept in a Belarusian prison. Five days after her arrest, Russia is expected to provide additional economic and political assistance to Lukashenko.
