"Leave the country. It's dangerous for civilians, don't travel there."

"Leave the country. It's dangerous for civilians, don't travel there."

According to the "LRT" portal, the Lithuanian Ministry considers that the current regime in Minsk is "dangerous for the lives of civilians".

By the way, Lithuania announced today that it will not allow any flight, neither incoming nor outgoing, to cross the Belarusian airspace, the day after Belarus intercepted the plane on the way to Vilnius and arrested the oppositionist who was on that flight.

"All flights going to or from Lithuanian airports via Belarusian airspace are banned from tomorrow," Transport Minister Marius Kudis said at a government meeting in Vilnius.

Just to reiterate, the plane of the company "Ryanair" was forcibly redirected to the airport in Minsk, accompanied by military planes, and Roman Protasevich, a Belarusian journalist and activist, was taken out of the plane, for whom a warrant was issued in Belarus. The company "Ryanair" announced that the plane landed in Vilnius on Sunday, but it had previously spent several hours in Belarus, where it landed, Reuters reports.

President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda, then asked Belarus to immediately release Protashevich, who is otherwise one of the critics of President Alexander Lukashenko.

"I call on NATO and its allies in the EU to react immediately to the threat posed by the Belarusian regime to the international civil aviation. The international community must react immediately so that something like this does not happen again," the Lithuanian president said at the time.

The EU currently has sanctions in place against Belarusian President Lukashenko, who personally ordered "MiG aircrafts" to bring a "seized" plane to Minsk, and members of his regime for involvement in the repression following the August 9, 2020 presidential election, which EU hadn't recognized. Eighty-eight people, including Lukashenko, along with seven entities, are subject to a travel ban and property freeze.

Investigative commission

A commission has been formed in Belarus to investigate yesterday's forced landing of a Ryanair plane, and the results will be announced soon, the Ministry of Transport and Communications told RIA Novosti.

A Ryanair plane, which was flying from Athens to Vilnius, was forced to land at the airport in Minsk on Sunday due to a report of an allegedly planted bomb, but it turned out that the report was false. The Investigative Committee of Belarus announced the initiation of criminal proceedings due to a false report about the bomb. Belarusian authorities arrested opposition journalist Roman Protasevich after the passenger plane landed, which provoked strong protests from the EU and the USA.

Protasevich was on the wanted list of the Belarusian authorities after last year's mass protests organized due to the controversial election victory of Alexander Lukashenko.

The Belarusian University in Vilnius announced today that his student Sofia Sapega (23), who was traveling with Potashevich, was also detained.