Lukashenko justifies the forced landing of the plane and accuses the West of "strangling" Belarus

Firm and blunt, Aleksandr Lukashenko on Wednesday defended the diversion and forced landing of the Ryanair plane in which a dissident was traveling and which led to his arrest, and has charged strongly against the West.

The Belarusian authoritarian leader has accused the European Union and the United States of organizing a "planned provocation" and waging a "hybrid war" to "strangle" the small former Soviet republic.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has justified the maneuver with the Ryanair aircraft by alluding to the alleged reports that there were explosives on board and has insisted that the gesture could have prevented a tragedy.

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• Roman Protasevich: the journalist who became Lukashenko's target

In his first appearance after the unprecedented landing in Minsk on Sunday of the plane flying between Athens (Greece) and Vilnius (Lithuania) and the arrest of prominent critical journalist Roman Protasevich, who was traveling on board, the authoritarian president of Belarus has claimed that he acted in accordance with the regulations. "We responded adequately to the information received," Lukashenko remarked in a speech at the Government House in Minsk, before the parliamentarians and members of the Executive. "How would the United States react in such a situation in light of its sad experience?" He insisted.

Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old blogger editor of a Telegram channel, and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, a 23-year-old Russian student who was traveling with him to Vilna, where they live, remain in detention. The case has drawn widespread international condemnation, which may lead to even greater isolation for Belarus: The EU agreed on Monday to impose a new round of sanctions and ban its airlines from entering European destinations and recommended that EU companies avoid Belarusian airspace. Meanwhile, the opposition leader Svetlana Tijanóvsyaka, who is exiled in Belarus, called for new mobilizations and asked the international community for more reprisals against the Belarusian regime.

Lukashenko, who avoided referring to the dissident Protasevich by name, has defended his arrest by the "sovereign right" of Belarus and has assured that he is an "extremist" who planned "to start a massacre and a bloody revolt". "As we predicted, our evildoers inside and outside the country have changed the methods of attacking the state," declared the Belarusian president. “They crossed the limits of common sense and human morality. As soon as the plane landed in Minsk, the accusations copied from the West and the flight bans began to arrive, ”he insisted. The largest European airlines have already determined that they will avoid flying over Belarus, after the incident with the Ryanair flight.

On Sunday, Belarusian flight controllers ordered the civil aircraft, which covered the Athens-Vilnius route, to land due to a bomb threat and a Belarusian fighter jet rushed to escort it to Minsk airport.

This Wednesday, Lukashenko has denied as an "absolute lie" that the pilots of the Ryanair plane were pressured to land and has ensured that the decision to send a MiG-29 fighter was taken to guarantee the safety of the people on board and in land as a necessary response to the alleged bomb threat, which he has claimed came from Switzerland

On Monday, Belarusian authorities claimed that it was a message signed by "Hamas soldiers", something that the Palestinian organization was quick to emphatically deny, charging Lukashenko in turn. "Hamas or not, it means nothing," Lukashenko said on Wednesday. "Was Chernobyl not enough? If there was a bomb on board the plane and the terrorists wanted to explode it, we couldn't have helped. But I couldn't let the plane fall on the heads of our people. "

The incident, which has caused a political earthquake and a new clash between Belarus and the West, has put the focus back on the former Soviet republic, its attacks on human rights and its crackdown on dissidents. The authoritarian leader has faced since last August, when he attributed the victory in the presidential elections with 80% of the votes, to unprecedented protests and mobilizations that he has tried to put down with a heavy hand: more than 35,000 people have been arrested Since the beginning of the demonstrations and civil rights organizations accumulate thousands of cases of police brutality. "This is no longer an information war, it is a modern hybrid war," insisted Lukashenko. "We know who benefits from demonizing Belarus," he said without elaborating."Before making any rash moves, remember that Belarus is the center of Europe and if something breaks out here, it is another world war."