Monday, May 24, 2021

That's a bold move.

"Belarusian authorities scrambled a fighter jet and flagged what turned out to be a false bomb alert to force a Ryanair plane to land on Sunday and then detained an opposition-minded journalist who was on board, drawing condemnation from Europe and the United States.

In what was described by some EU leaders as a hijacking, the passenger plane flying from Athens to Lithuania was suddenly diverted to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, escorted there by a Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jet.
"

I don't think that describing this as a state-sanctioned hijacking of a foreign-flagged airliner is at all inaccurate, if some of what's being said is true.


The flight originated in Greece and was bound for Lithuania, and was aboard a Polish-registered aircraft operated by a subsidiary of Ireland-based Ryanair. Understandably, rather a large number of nations and organizations are a bit cross with the Byelorussian government at the moment.

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