Is he adequate? Yes. And very dangerous.
Yelena Ivanova, Natalia Seibil
Why the commander of the crew of the Ryanair airline performing the Athens-Vilnius flight, 70 km from the main landing airfield, changes the flight plan and turns to Minsk, it will become known in detail very soon. All communications between controllers and the crew are recorded both on the ground and in the air. According to the rules, the decision to land the aircraft is made by the aircraft commander, and only by him. The dispatcher can inform the crew, advise him, but he cannot make a decision about landing on a particular plane. Pilot Andrey Litvinov points out that the crew had Vilnius almost under them. Since the airfield of the Lithuanian capital is the main landing airfield, the crew was ready for it. The captain has already received a weather forecast, studied the airfield, conducted preliminary training with the crew, and held a briefing. At the moment of a stressful situation, when you are informed about an explosive device on board, changing the airfield, when the one you were preparing to fly to is nearby, is crazy, says Litvinov. Circumstances may force the captain to change the route, or, as in this case, another plane - a fighter of the Belarusian Air Force:
- You force the commander to change the flight plan, without explaining the reasons, and raise military aviation into the sky. Is this an intruder plane? Is this a reconnaissance plane that must be forced to land at all costs? We understand why this is all done. What is there to discuss. I do not want to confuse politics, special services... I am sick of all this.
Some experts condemn the actions of the Belarusian authorities, others justify them. Doctor of Law, international law expert Alexey Ispolinov does not see anything special in what happened:
- If now there are radio interception data that the MiG threatened to use weapons... The captain makes his own decision. No one stood next to him with a pistol. When will the transcripts of the crew's conversations be put on the table... how can you coerce? This is not a tow truck in Moscow. How can you force - to throw a cable over the wheel? Of course not! There must be a clearly formulated threat, which the crew must perceive as a threat, exchanging among themselves. If this will not be seen in internal conversations, then this is all sucked from the finger.
In addition to the recordings of the recorders, the testimony of the pilots themselves will be the main ones. They will tell you what happened in the air 30 km from Vilnius in the airspace of Belarus. Independent aviation expert Vadim Lukashevich knows many ways how a military aircraft can force a change in course:
- There are a number of maneuvers, there is a command "follow me", there is a threat - a military plane flies up to a civilian and shows him the board with missiles, that is, he is ready to use weapons. He can make a maneuver — cross the course of a civilian plane, right in front of the nose at high speed. This is a command to change course. In other words, for this there are a number of maneuvers, a number of techniques in case there is no direct radio communication between the aircraft and the interceptor. Technically, this is not difficult.
Major General of the FSB Alexander Mikhailov does not describe the explanations of the Belarusian authorities about the presence of a bomb on board as a "fig leaf" and a far-fetched reason. The "brilliant operation", about which, choking with delight, Russian propagandists are singing hosanna to Lukashenko, causes nothing but amazement among professionals:
- What kind of operation is it? This is not an operation. An operation is when done quietly, without noise and dust, when no one noticed what happened. I understand that we do not care about any international organizations, but the fact remains. This puzzles me.
In Russia, a false report of an act of terrorism under Article 207 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is imposed from 8 to 10 years. There is no doubt that after a while the public will be shown a recording of an anonymous call, due to which the Belarusian MIG was sent to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border.
- What do fighters have to do with it? What function did the fighter perform in this situation? He could have cleared this plane in the air, or what? It looks like some kind of absurdity. We could call it air piracy if it weren't for this anonymous, real or imagined call. Such issues are resolved at the dispatcher level, at the level of the security service. When the president takes part in this, and on his order the plane was landed, I do not understand what kind of world we live in.
Alexey Ispolinov recalls that the emergency took place in the airspace of a sovereign state. Every country has the right to protect it:
- In national law, this is all clearly spelled out, up to the possibility of shooting down civilian planes, after the tragedy of September 11th. In the laws of all countries, everyone has the unconditional right to shoot down. We proceed from the assumption that the ship's commander himself assesses the situation. Nobody stands near him with a pistol.
The fact that the journalist Protasevich was in deep development does not surprise the experts. This is a common reaction of any state. If a person is on the wanted list, then all the necessary measures are taken to return him, says General Mikhailov. However, he does not believe in the thorough preparation of this action:
- Apparently, all this happened absolutely spontaneously. It is a swift decision-making process without deliberate consequences. Surely Protasevich was in deep development, what to say about this. But there are questions for implementation. The invented call is a fig leaf, especially if we are talking about the fact that it was 10 minutes of flight to the nearest airfield.
Lukashenko does not calculate any consequences, believes the Belarusian political scientist, now living in Poland, Dmitry Bolkunets. Bolkunets first left Minsk for Moscow, but two months ago he moved to Poland. As it turned out, not in vain. A former Belarusian special forces soldier suddenly announced that a capture group from Minsk had left behind Bolkunets.
- Lukashenko has a benefit now. He is on the front pages of the world's media. He gained his fame only now. Everywhere they write that he is a terrorist. He can be congratulated. He rose to the level of Gaddafi and the late Osama bin Laden. He does not calculate anything, because the risks and image losses are enormous. The arrest of the blogger who criticized Lukashenko is incomparable with the losses that Belarus is now bearing.
Europe never imposed sanctions on Lukashenko after the August 2020 elections. He hopes that this time too, he will carry it through, and the West will get off with formidable Twitter posts and indignant press notes. In addition to Roman Protasevich, who is supported by everyone from US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to all European leaders, there are more than 1,000 political prisoners in Belarus. Recently, an oppositionist died in a colony under strange circumstances, who reported that yellow stickers were glued to political prisoners in colonies, as the Nazis once forced Jews to wear yellow stars. The opposition says it was murder.
A European summit is taking place in Brussels today. The Belarusian opposition is very much waiting for how it will end. Dmitry Bolkunets recalls that sanctions have been and remain an effective means of pressure:
- They can adopt the fourth European package of sanctions against a number of Belarusian officials, it is already ready. They can also close the aisle for Belavia and recommend European carriers to refuse to fly over Belarus. The same applies to the introduction of a trade embargo on petroleum products and potash fertilizers. This is theoretically possible, given that the US sanctions package begins to operate on June 3. It provides for a ban on 9 companies in the petrochemical industry.
In addition to monetary losses, the Belarusian dad faces more serious consequences:
- There is another option that is being considered in Europe - the recognition of Lukashenko as a terrorist. If this happens, it will completely close any doors for Lukashenko, not only in the West, but I also admit that in the East too. Even for Putin, who supported Lukashenko, it will not be comme il faut to communicate with a person who is officially recognized as a terrorist in the world.
Historian Aleksey Makarkin does not believe that Lukashenko will be recognized as a terrorist. Libyan leader Gaddafi was recognized as a terrorist after, by his order, a passenger plane was shot down over the Scottish Lockerbie, and there were casualties. In addition, the recognition coincided with the collapse of the USSR, and the authorities refused to support their former allies. Now in Russia, both Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein are considered victims of the civilized world, into which we so aspired to enter 30 years ago:
- The question here is who will determine who the terrorist is. If the UN Security Council, then Russia will veto any resolution on Belarus. Other measures could be taken.
Other measures are the refusal to fly over Belarus by Western companies. After a Malaysian Boeing was shot down in the skies over Donbass and flights were banned, Ukraine lost 400 thousand euros a month.
Lukashenko is a very clever person, the historian Makarkin believes, he calculated the reaction to yesterday's action. The operation in the skies over Belarus had not only a symbolic meaning in the fight against the opposition - they say, we have long arms, we will reach everyone. She also had another addressee - the Russian president:
- It is important for Lukashenko to maintain support for Russia, but also to get away from unacceptable obligations. And then he can get closer to Russia on an anti-Western basis. I think it was all thought out, it was not a desperate or emotional step.
After popular protests in August last year, Lukashenko's position in the Russian leadership has weakened. In the Russian elite, the supporters of replacing Lukashenko with a more sane and pliable partner for Russia grew stronger. After that, he managed to withstand the first wave of protests with the help of Russia, when the Russian authorities effectively cut off the protests, threatening, if anything, to bring in troops. Lukashenko was saved. It seemed that the dad had become more pliable. He spoke about his departure and about deeper integration with Russia. Less than a year has passed, in the integration roadmaps, which he talked about on the mountain slopes of Sochi between skis and snowmobiles, as there was no single currency, and there is not. Nothing is said about Russian military bases in Belarus either. Nevertheless, the Lukashenko regime has strengthened since August, says Aleksey Makarkin:
- Another question - you can strengthen, but it is difficult to sit on bayonets. There are actually quite a few such people who are jubilant in Belarus. Therefore, in Moscow, some people say that they need to look through some other options if they do not want to be dependent on Lukashenko's fate. And Lukashenko is tying Russia to himself - look, I'm for you! Love me, be friends with me.
Lukashenko has a very strong discord with the Belarusian middle class, with young people, in general, with the modernist part of society. Experts point out that he has serious problems with workers. Online news publications such as Nekhta are dangerous for the daddy. They perform an important function for the protest - a collective organizer and propagandist. The arrest of Protasevich once again indicates that Lukashenko is ready to do anything against people who, in his opinion, play a key role in the information war against him.
Lukashenko also has supporters. Therefore, yesterday's action is also the mobilization of our own people. In August of last year, when the regime began to swing, its supporters had a fear that the opposition would come and treat them as they did in relation to them. They are security officials, state officials, workers of Lukashenko’s propaganda are part of the regime, so the fear of arrest and lustration is not an empty phrase for them.
- If you look at this segment, he is now delighted. He rejoices. And in Russia it is. If in Russia this is a sign of solidarity, they say, so they, the liberals, then in Belarus these are people, his supporters. And he gives them a signal that I will not go anywhere. Serve me faithfully, I am not some Yanukovych who tried to look back to the West. I am with you to the end.