Raman Pratasevich

During the migration crisis at the Belarusian-Polish border, Polish special services met a Belarusian migrant who worked as an air traffic controller at Minsk Airport. It was him who revealed the details of the forced landing of the Ryanair plane on which opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich and his friend Sofia Sapega were flying, the New York Times reports.

They also interviewed the passengers of the flight

Sofia Sapega and Raman Pratasevich have been placed under house arrest, the Russian service of BBC News reports with reference to their families. The detainees are now being held in a rented apartment.

On June 24, the Council of the EU introduced new restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime to respond to the escalation of serious human rights violations in Belarus and the violent repression of civil society, democratic opposition and journalists,

The official Minsk did not expect that the incident with the Ryanair plane would “qualitatively change the West’s attitude towards the dictatorship in Belarus.”

The European Parliament calls on the EU to punish those involved in forcing a plane to land in Minsk on 23 May and in the detention of journalist Raman Pratasevich.

The situation in Belarus was discussed at the European Parliament plenary debate on June 8. During the event, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell explained why the targeted sanctions should be imposed on the Belarusian regime in the near future.

On June 1, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said he was ready to allow the “LNR” representatives to visit political prisoner Raman Pratasevich

The capture of Raman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega has raised new concerns in investment funds about the ethics of investing in Belarus’ public debt,

On June 4, the Council of the European Union decided to strengthen the existing restrictive measures in view of the situation in Belarus by introducing a ban on the overflight of EU airspace and on access to EU airports by Belarusian carriers of all kinds.

Russian passport-holders kept a wary eye on Belarusian blogger Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega for days in Greece before they boarded a flight to Belarus, VICE World News reports with reference to Greek officials.