DISINFO: Poland is not a party in the Ryanair incident in Belarus
SUMMARY
[In terms of the Ryanair plane], a smart question here would be why is Poland interfering in this situation at all. We are dealing with an incident that has already become an international scandal and in which Poland plays a completely marginal role. It is a fact that the plane belongs to a company registered in Poland, which is owned by the Irish Ryanair; also, there were four Polish citizens on board – does it really put us on the list of the sides most harmed by this incident? Don’t the Polish Prosecution Service have anything else to do? The only reason for the Polish Prosecution to initiate a criminal investigation on this incident is the desire of Polish politicians to use this international scandal in order to appear on TV.
RESPONSE
Disinformation about Ryanair flight 4978.
On 24 May 2021, the Polish Prosecution Service initiated a criminal investigation into the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk. Poland is a direct party in this incident because the aircraft belongs to a Polish company, Ryanair Sun (a subsidiary of the Irish company Ryanair). The Polish authorities accused Belarus of “state terrorism”.
On Sunday, 23 May 2021, the Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to turn back minutes before crossing the Lithuanian border and land in the Belarusian capital. The pretext for landing in Minsk was a false report about a bomb on board. At the moment when the plane changed course, it was closer to Vilnius airport than to Minsk. The plane was forced to land in the Belarusian capital by a Belarusian military aircraft. It was not the decision of the Ryanair pilot to land in the Belarusian capital as can be seen in our article here.
Belarusian opposition journalist and a critic of the illegitimate Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Roman Pratasevich, was detained during a repeated security check of passengers. The Belarusian authorities are persecuting him due to activities in reporting on the 2020 presidential election on his NEXTA Telegram channel used by the country's opposition. The Belarusian security service, KGB, has listed him as a terrorist (Read more about Pratasevich here).
The EU condemned the Belarusian action against a civil plane and the detention of Pratasevich. In a declaration on behalf of the EU, the High Representative called for the immediate release of Roman Pratasevich. This was followed by a European Council statement, in which the EU leaders called for targeted individual and economic sanctions as well as to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and preventing access to EU airports of flights operated by these.
Read more similar disinformation cases alleging that Minsk forced Ryanair flight to land in full accordance with international law and that forcing down aircraft is common practice among special forces.