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According to the president, community leaders managed to achieve “what the dictator of Belarus did not expect.”
“I think the reaction will be nervous. The measures that have been proposed are quite painful, they are related to economic losses for the regime,” said G. Nausėda in a video distributed by the Presidency on Tuesday after the European Council meeting.
European Union leaders on Monday condemned the crash landing of a passenger plane in Minsk and the arrest of opposition activist Raman Pratasevičius and his friend Sofia Sapega.
They also called for the couple to be released, instructed the EU Council to “take the necessary steps to ban Belarusian airlines from operating in EU airspace and to block access to EU airports for flights served by such. airlines “, and asked carriers to avoid the country’s airspace.
Among other things, EU leaders agreed to expand the list of sanctions against the Minsk regime for both natural and legal persons, as well as to include specific economic sanctions to be proposed by the European Commission.
Lukashenko plans to make a statement in the Belarusian parliament on Wednesday.
Airlines France, Finnair and Singapore Airlines joined an airline chain on Tuesday that decided to suspend flights over Belarus.
According to G. Nausėda, “the sky of Belarus is empty at the moment.”
“Belarus is becoming an isolated island, but not the island Mr. Lukashenko dreamed of,” said the Lithuanian president.
On Sunday afternoon, a Ryanair passenger plane flying from Athens to Vilnius landed at Minsk airport. He had approached Lithuanian airspace, but was forced to head to the capital of Belarus.
Ryanair reported that the plane with more than 100 passengers landed at Minsk airport when Belarusian air dispatchers reported a possible security threat on board. This information was not confirmed later.
In addition, Belarus had lifted a MiG-29 fighter jet and a Mi-24 military helicopter to force a civilian plane to land.
The plane was piloted by the Belarusian opposition journalist and activist R. Pratasevich. When the plane landed in Minsk, he was detained, as was his girlfriend, a student at the European University of Humanities in Vilnius, a Russian citizen S. Sapega.
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