DISINFO: The Ryanair flight incident could be UK’s provocation
SUMMARY
Ryanair is an Irish company; its major transport node is the London Stansted airport. The Ryanair plane departed from Greece, the country which since long ago has been in the sphere of influence of the UK's special services. Telegram channel Nexta, which Raman Pratasevich was part of, is located in Poland; all Polish special services are subordinated to the US in the first place and to the UK as the US’s satellite. Finally, the Ryanair flight incident took place on the eve of the EU summit.
The Western plans concerning Belarus have failed; Raman Pratasevich as a western asset lost his significance. Given that Brits controlled Pratasevich’s logistics, they could dump him this way.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about western “colour revolution” attempts in Belarus, and the puppet status of EU countries, Greece and Poland in particular.
The UK and US do not control Poland or Greece. The EU Member States are sovereign countries and make sovereign decisions about their own security and foreign policies. There is no evidence that the UK or US somehow influenced Greece or Poland in the context of the Ryanair flight FR4978 forced diversion.
The protests in Belarus were not planned by the UK and West as claimed; they erupted to contest the results of the presidential election on 9 August 2020, which were not monitored by independent experts, and are largely considered fraudulent by both international observers and a big part of the Belarusian society. On 19 August 2020, the European Council called Belarusian elections neither free nor fair.
On 23 May 2021, a Belarusian fighter jet intercepted Ryanair flight FR4987 en route from Athens to Vilnius. The Minsk Air Control reported a bomb on board the aircraft and demanded the flight redirected to Minsk. As the plane landed, a dissident journalist wanted by the Belarusian authorities for “extremism” was detained. No bombs were found. In the afternoon of 24 May, Belarusian authorities claimed that the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas had organised the bomb threat, allegedly to force the EU to demand an Israeli cease-fire in Gaza. This came several days after a cease-fire had already been negotiated.
On 24 May 2021, in a declaration on behalf of the EU on the forced diversion of Ryanair flight FR4978 to Minsk on 23 May 2021, the High Representative called for the immediate release of detained journalist Mr Pratasevich. This was followed by a European Council statement, in which the EU leaders called for targeted individual and economic sanctions as well as a ban on flights over EU airspace by Belarusian airlines as well as preventing these flights from accessing airports in the EU airports.
See our review of lies concerning the Ryanair flight accident by the Belarusian authorities and the analysis of strategy the pro-Kremlin media widely used in their reporting about the accident.