The Roman Protasevich case causes great anger between the EU and Belarus.
President Alexander Lukashenko speaks out publicly.
The news ticker.
Roman Protasewitsch
: After the alleged kidnapping of the regime critic and his girlfriend, the EU imposed new sanctions on Belarus.
Ruler Alexander Lukashenko speaks up and describes the opposition activist as a "terrorist".
He also spoke of murder, Protasevich had killed people (
see update from May 26, 6:38 p.m.
).
Norbert Röttgen (CDU) and Manfred Weber (CSU) do not rule out Russian participation
(see update from May 26, 10 a.m.)
.
This
news ticker on the Ryanair incident and Protasewitsch
is updated regularly.
Update from May 26, 8:47 p.m.:
With a desperate call for help, the parents of the arrested government critic Roman Protasewitsch have now turned to the public and the international community.
"Please, I plead, I appeal to the entire international community to save him," said Natalia Protassewitsch, the mother of the 26-year-old blogger, in an interview with the AFP news agency in Wroclaw, Poland, with tears. “He's just a journalist, he's just a kid. Please save him! They'll kill him! ”Said the 46-year-old. She has not slept for days and never put the cell phone down in the hope of good news. “You sent a fighter jet to get this young man! This is an act of terrorism, there is no other way to call it, ”she explained. "He was taken hostage."
Update from May 26th, 7.40 p.m
.: After the forced landing of a passenger plane in Minsk and the arrest of the blogger Roman Protasewitsch, Poland closed its airspace to Belarusian airlines.
Government spokesman Piotr Müller announced on Wednesday that this is one element of the sanctions for which Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke out at the EU summit.
Already in the afternoon the “Flightradar” portal showed how an airplane of the Belarusian airline Belavia flew several loops on the route from Minsk to Barcelona before penetrating the Polish airspace and finally turning back to Minsk.
Protasewitsch / Belarus: Lukashenko suddenly speaks of murder and turns to Putin - death penalty threatens
Update from May 26, 6:38 p.m
.: In the presence of the Belarusian secret service KGB, Alexander Lukashenko spoke up in his first public appearance since the controversial landing of a Ryanair plane. The West is waging a war against Belarus, the rulers thundered in front of members of parliament in Minsk on Wednesday. The incident was three days ago. The 66-year-old now also spoke for the first time about the forced landing of the plane on Sunday, condemned by the EU and the USA: He acted because of a bomb alarm - which quickly turned out to be a false alarm.
Lukashenko is criticized for having misused this argument to arrest the blogger and political activist he was looking for, Roman Protasewitsch.
When asked about Protasewitsch, Lukashenko said in the presence of the KGB: "This bastard killed people in the southeast of Ukraine." The secret service will soon provide details.
Russia is also in the picture.
Protasevich worked as a reporter in Ukraine.
However, it has not been proven that he should have taken part in the war in eastern Ukraine as a mercenary.
But these allegations are particularly serious because the journalist could face life-threatening charges.
In Belarus, serious crimes are subject to the death penalty, which the country is the last to carry out in Europe.
+
Critic of the regime in Belarus: Roman Protasewitsch (Mi.), Here at a protest in 2017.
© Sergei Grits / AP / dpa
After the announcement of sanctions (
see previous update
), Lukashenko gave the order to work out counter-
sanctions
to hit the West hard.
He himself wants to look for other markets and praised China and Russia as loyal supporters in his speech.
This Friday he will be received by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in Sochi on the Black Sea.
It is the third meeting of the two since the beginning of the year.
Lukashenko, who is heavily indebted to Russia with billions, is likely to come to Putin once more as a petitioner.
The Kremlin and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow jump aside Lukashenko before the visit on Wednesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Lukashenko's statements about the Ryanair plane that landed were conclusive.
Like Minsk, he advocates an international investigation.
And the Foreign Ministry rejects allegations, including German politicians, that Moscow could have anything to do with the incident.
Protasevich case: Belarus announces “quite painful” sanctions
Update from May 26, 2:15 p.m.:
Belarus is threatening the West with backlash because of the sanctions following the forced landing of a passenger plane. The government had prepared "protective measures", said Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko on Wednesday the newspaper of the presidential office,
Belarus Segodnja
, according to. "These measures will be quite painful for those countries that have taken an openly hostile stance." These included restrictions on transit, the prime minister said. However, he left it open whether it meant goods or the transit of oil and gas to Europe. There could also be an embargo on imports. Golovchenko also did not say which products it could be.
Ruler Alexander Lukashenko threatened the West: "We will act in traditional and new markets." Minsk will respond to the punitive measures accordingly, said Foreign Minister Vladimir Makey. According to the head of government, Belarus does not want to react rashly: "We suggest that you think again before you go down the slippery path of an economic war in which there will be no winners."
Lukashenko also called the arrested opposition activist Roman Protasevich a "terrorist".
The 26-year-old and his helpers had planned a “bloody uprising” in Belarus, Lukashenko told MPs in Minsk on Wednesday.
"You should understand the main thing here: there was a terrorist on board the plane," said Lukashenko, according to
Belarus Segodnja
.
This was known beyond the Belarusian border, he said with a view to Russia.
This was the first time Lukashenko admitted that he brought the Ryanair plane to the ground in Minsk on Sunday on the way to Lithuania in order to have his opponent arrested.
According to experts, if Protasevich is actually convicted as a terrorist, he faces more than 15 years' imprisonment or even the death penalty.
Lukashenko: "I acted lawfully to protect people"
Update from May 26, 10:35 a.m.:
The Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has made public statements for the first time since the imprisonment of the prominent blogger Protasevich.
He defended the forced diversion and landing of the Ryainair plane, in which the 26-year-old and his partner were, as "legal".
On Wednesday he told the Russian parliament, according to the state news agency Belta, "I acted lawfully to protect people, in accordance with all international regulations." He said reports that the passenger plane had been forced to land by a fighter jet as a "lie".
Update from May 26, 10 a.m.:
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, Norbert Röttgen (CDU), has not ruled out Russia's involvement in the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Belarus. Röttgen told the
Rheinische Post
and the
General-Anzeiger
that “at least it can be assumed that the state hijacking of the plane was approved by the Kremlin, if there was not even operational support from Russia”.
"Now is the time to target all pillars of the Lukashenko regime with harsh sanctions: the military, police, administration, security services and, above all, the state-owned companies from which the regime and its corrupt profiteers make a living," said Röttgen. A KfW loan for Siemens power plants in Belarus must also be stopped. "After such an escalation, there can be no loans in favor of Belarus from a state development bank."
The FDP parliamentary group vice-president Alexander Graf Lambsdorff also welcomed the EU sanctions. "The EU must now treat the Belarusian dictator for what he is: a criminal who took the hijacking of the passenger plane outside of international law." The country's Achilles' heel is economy and finance. The fact that the Belarusian airline Belavia is now no longer generating income will be reflected in the state budget. The release of the arrested blogger and his partner is most likely to be achieved via Moscow, Count Lambsdorff said.
Foreign politician Röttgen also said: “We finally need a common European policy on Russia based on realism.” With a country that is ready to enforce its goals by military means, one cannot conduct a dialogue in order to pursue European interests.
"Germany and the EU will not get any further here with talk therapy."
CSU man Manfred Weber makes Russia jointly responsible for Ryanair landing in Belarus
The head of the conservatives in the EU Parliament, Manfred Weber (CSU), has made Russia jointly responsible for the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk and the arrest of a Belarusian blogger.
"This incident shows that we have a leadership in Moscow that no longer wants to coexist with Europe, but deliberately steers a course of conflict," Weber told the
Augsburger Allgemeine
.
"It cannot be that we are no longer protected within Europe from this state terror that took place there," said the CSU politician.
He definitely assumes that the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin played more than a spectator role in the incident and that the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko coordinated the action with Moscow, Weber said.
"Lukashenko knows that his regime has no chance of survival without the support and backing of Putin," the group leader of the European People's Party (EPP) told the newspaper. "That is why many assume that all essential steps will be coordinated with Moscow and covered by there." The overall picture of European-Russian relations is that of an "increasing escalation," said the CSU politician. “There was open murder on our streets. There were attempts to attack our democracy. ”In the Syria conflict, too, the confrontation replaced cooperation with Russia.
“The list is long.
Therefore, all options must be on the table so that we can show the Russian President that we will not accept this destabilization strategy, ”Weber told the paper.
“We Europeans will always offer dialogue.
But if it is rejected, we must also be ready to be determined, ”stressed Weber.
Should there be further escalations, for example in the action against the democracy movement in Russia, further sanctions against Moscow are conceivable.
“That includes the Nord Stream 2 project,” said Weber.
The Protasevich case is widening: The blogger's girlfriend is also threatened with indictment in Belarus
Update from May 25, 9:53 p.m .:
The Belarusian authorities are apparently also targeting the girlfriend of the arrested blogger Roman Protasevich.
Sofia Sapega was also arrested after the Ryanair plane was forced to land in Minsk.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the 23-year-old Russian citizen is facing charges in Belarus.
As
reported by the
Reuters
news
agency
, a statement by the ministry said that Sapega was linked to suspicions of "having violated several articles of the Belarusian criminal code between August and September 2020."
Furthermore, the duration of the detention has been extended to two months, the Tass news agency reported with reference to Sapega's father.
The Belarusian opposition activist Svetlana Tichanovskaya wrote the same thing on Twitter.
She relied on Sapega's attorney in her tweet.
Belarus arrested Protasevich: the blogger's mother raises serious allegations
Update from May 25, 6:33 p.m.:
The blogger Roman Protasewitsch * arrested in Belarus was severely mistreated in custody, according to his mother.
In a video from the remand prison in Minsk distributed by Belarusian state propaganda, clear traces of the use of violence were visible on her son's face, Natalia Protasewitsch told the German Press Agency on Tuesday.
"I'm not a surgeon, but it is certain that they hit his nose and possibly broken it." In addition, the 26-year-old's left cheek was swollen and drooped.
"Even under the make-up you can see a yellowish color - probably bruises were covered with powder." There are also strangulation marks on the neck.
"It looks like they choked him to get evidence out of him."
He either read the confession from the paper, "or he was forced to memorize it," Natalia Protasewitsch continued.
Your son is a very strong person.
However, his girlfriend is also in custody.
Investigators could mistreat the young woman to break her son, she fears.
+
Roman Protasevich: The Belarusian regime showed a video by the government critic.
© Telegram / dpa
Belarus arrested Protasevich: Dramatic Ryanair radio surfaced - "Bomb on board"
Update from May 25, 3:55 p.m
.: After the international outrage about the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk, Belarus published the radio communication with the pilot.
"We have been informed by the security services that you have a bomb on board and that it can be detonated over Vilnius," said Minsk air traffic control according to the transcript published by the Ministry of Transport.
When the pilot asked where the bomb threat came from, the air traffic controller replied that it had been emailed to Minsk Airport.
The pilot was advised several times to land in the Belarusian capital Minsk.
This is “our recommendation”, said the pilot.
The Belarusian Air Force dispatched a fighter jet on Sunday to escort the Ryanair plane.
After landing in Minsk, the government critic and journalist Roman Protasewitsch, who lived in exile in Poland and Lithuania, and his girlfriend from Russia were arrested, both of whom were sitting in the plane.
Roman Protasewitsch: A number of airlines avoid Belarusian airspace
Update from May 25, 3:30 p.m.:
The blogger Roman Protasewitsch is said to have quickly known what was in store for him after the forced emergency landing in Minsk *.
This is reported by several eyewitnesses from the Ryanair plane (see link).
Update from May 25, 3:25 p.m.:
After the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk, numerous airlines have announced that they will avoid Belarusian airspace for the time being.
The airlines Lufthansa, SAS and AirBaltic had already announced on Monday that they would adjust their flight routes.
Air France, Finnair, KLM, Singapore Airlines and the Japanese ANA followed suit on Tuesday.
Roman Protasewitsch: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces "consequences" to Belarus
Update from May 25, 1:05 p.m
.: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed concern after the publication of a video by the arrested Belarusian blogger Roman Protassewitch.
It was "deeply worrying" to watch the recording, Johnson tweeted this Tuesday.
“As a journalist and a passionate supporter of freedom of expression, I demand his immediate release.
The actions of Belarus will have consequences, ”emphasized Johnson, who previously worked as a newspaper correspondent in Brussels, among other things.
Belarus's actions will have consequences.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
Roman Protasewitsch: Ruler Alexander Lukashenko reacts to criticism of the Ryanair incident
Update from May 25, 12.45 p.m.:
The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko reacts to the international criticism of the forced emergency landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk.
The Belarusian government has invited international aviation experts to an investigation.
The Ministry of Transport announced on Tuesday that representatives of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and EU experts had been invited.
+
imago0117340565h.jpg
© Andrei Stasevich via www.imago-images.de
Roman Protasewitsch: Belarus and Alexander Lukashenko's actions are causing international criticism
First report from May 25th:
Munich / Minsk - It was Roman Protasevich's first sign of life: The Belarusian regime showed a video by the Belarusian government critic *.
On this he looked tired.
There was speculation, including from his father, whether Protasevich even had injuries to his face.
Which could not be clearly verified.
As a reminder: the 26-year-old opposition activist was arrested in a spectacular action on the weekend of Pentecost at the behest of ruler Alexander Lukashenko *.
The 66-year-old head of government had a Ryanair plane pushed back to Minsk by a fighter jet, which was actually on its way to Vilnius, Lithuania - and had Protasewitsch on board.
Roman Protasewitsch: Sanctions against Belarus and ruler Alexander Lukashenko
Ryanair boss O'Leary spoke of "state-financed kidnapping" and "state-financed piracy", the German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) * called for the "immediate release of Roman Protasewitsch" at the current EU summit.
The European Union (EU) has already decided on the first sanctions, including that the airspace will be closed to airlines from Belarus.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tichanovskaya has called for more pressure from the USA * and the rest of the G7 countries on Minsk.
In a phone call with the national security advisor Jake Sullivan, she called on the US government to "isolate the regime and put it under pressure through sanctions," said the exiled opposition politician on Twitter this Tuesday (May 25).
Roman Protasewitsch: Death threats against fellow activists of Lukashenko's critic?
Meanwhile, a colleague of the detained Belarusian blogger reported death threats.
"You write to me that it is our turn next, that we will not be kidnapped to Belarus, but shot in Warsaw," said blogger Stepan Putilo of the Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita" (Tuesday).
The 22-year-old Putilo was together with Protasewitsch founder of the portal
Nexta
in the news channel
Telegram
.
The editorial office is based in Warsaw.
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List of rubric lists: © Sergei Grits / AP / dpa
