Belarusian authorities threatened to shoot down the plane if it does not land in Minsk

"According to the NAU (People's Anti-Crisis Directorate), the interceptor fighter of the Belarusian Air Force maneuvered a signal to the pilots of the Ryanair airliner: follow me. The captain of a civil aircraft was obliged to obey. The captain could not obey the dispatcher's command, but in the event of a threat from a military aircraft, he is obliged”, - Latushko wrote in his telegram channel.

According to the former minister of culture of the republic, two citizens of Belarus and four citizens of Russia did not fly to Vilnius from Minsk.

Earlier it became known that a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius was urgently landed at the Minsk airport after receiving a message about mining. By order of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, a fighter was raised into the sky, and the head of state personally gave the command to land the plane.

The founder of the opposition telegram channel Nexta, Roman Protasevich, who was on board the plane, was detained and opened a criminal case against him for organizing mass riots.

The world community reacted to the incident. In particular, Lithuania demanded the immediate release of Protasevich, the head of the Latvian Foreign Ministry Edgar Rinkevich said that the detention is completely unacceptable and contrary to international law. Legislators from the UK, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany, as well as the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Senate, Robert Menedes, spoke about the need to conduct an immediate investigation of the incident with the Ryanair plane and the arrest of Protasevich.