In their statement issued on June 3, Ukrainian legislators voiced their attitude toward the forced landing of the Ryanair commercial airliner in Minsk, the capital city of Belarus.
The statement goes back to May 23 of this year when the passenger plane of the Ryanair Airlines flying from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, was forced by a Belarusian fighter jet to land in Minsk International Airport.
Onboard the plane, there were 120 civilian passengers including Roman Protasevich, the founder of the biggest opposition Telegram channel NEXTA. Protasevich was removed from the plane and then arrested by Belarusian law enforcement officers.
The Verkhovna Rada document says that Ukrainian lawmakers resolutely condemn the decision of the authorities of the Republic of Belarus to force down the passenger aircraft and arrest a prominent Belorussian journalist. They claim that such actions “prove once again that the Belarusian authorities won’t hesitate to use force to attack political opposition, the freedom of speech and journalist activities in Belarus”.
The Parliament of Ukraine calls upon the Belarusian authorities to release Roman Protasevich and all political prisoners without delay, to ban violence and tortures which the police use against Belorusian citizens who are kept under arrest, and guarantee them the protection of their rights in accordance with international commitments.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has affirmed the country’s solidarity with all its international partners, first of all with the European Union member-states and the United States that have banned their national airlines to operate over Belarus’s airspace.
Besides, Parliament has supported the decision of the Ukrainian government to ban air shipments with Belarus as of May 26, 2021 and to step up “air sanctions” against Belorusian airlines as of May 28 of this year. In fact, Ukraine has been the first country among European states to do so.
At the same time, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has prepared a package of sanctions against those Belorusian citizens who show support for Aleksander Lukashenko. “We hope that this package will be reviewed soon and followed by a decree of the President on the introduction of personal sanctions”, said Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhen Yenin.
He clarified that “sanctions will be imposed on those Belarusians who were involved in falsifying the results of the last presidential elections and carrying out repressive measures against their fellow countrymen”.
The newspaper Voice of Ukraine
