A European airliner was hijacked by a neighboring government
Lesson summary
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Coming up today: A terrifying story from the eastern frontier of Europe. An airplane carrying 126 passengers from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania, was diverted by a military fighter plane as it flew through Belarus’s airspace. The passengers were detained in Minsk for seven hours, while the government supposedly investigated a bomb threat. But the bomb threat was a ruse: the diversion was engineered by the Belarusian government to arrest an opposition activist. In the second half of today’s lesson, we’ll talk about the phrasal verb “cover up,” and we have a quote of the week.
Plucked from thin air
A Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was hijacked by the government of Belarus.
At 12:30 p.m. on May 23, Ryanair flight 4978, traveling over Belarus, received a message from the Belarusian government that there was a bomb threat against the plane. The bomb, the message said, would be activated when the plane reached its destination, Vilnius, Lithuania. As a security precaution, the flight would have to be diverted to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, even though that was not the nearest airport. A fighter jet from the Belarusian army was scrambled to intercept the plane and make sure it landed in Minsk.
The cabin crew made the announcement and the flight changed course at 12:46. Most passengers were concerned, but one passenger was terrified. Twenty-six-year-old Roman Protasevich knew something terrible was about to happen. He suspected that the diversion was not about a bomb. He feared it was really a ploy to arrest him. He was right.
When the plane landed, the Belarusian authorities escorted passengers off the aircraft in small groups. They searched the plane for a bomb. They spread out all the checked luggage on the tarmac and used trained dogs to sniff for explosives. They interviewed the people aboard.
There was no bomb, however; nor was there any threat of a bomb. It was all a ruse, elaborate theater to cover up the fact that Belarus wanted to arrest one of the passengers aboard. After seven hours, the flight was cleared to leave Belarus and continue on to Vilnius. Protasevich and his girlfriend were not on board.
Belarus is a former Soviet republic on Europe’s eastern border; it is not part of the EU. It is led by Aleksandr Lukashenko, nicknamed Europe’s “last dictator.” He won what may have been a legitimate election to be president of the newly independent Belarus in 1994. But he wasted no time in tearing up any semblance of democratic legitimacy. Today, he rules as an authoritarian, faking election results, imprisoning and torturing his opposition, and repressing free speech.
He was up for election again in 2020 when he faced a protest movement against his rule. When the government announced Lukashenko had won a sixth term, the protests only got bigger. Both the US and Europe declared the elections were not free or fair and called on Lukashenko to step down and allow a free election. Fearing for her life, and the lives of her children, the leader of the opposition fled to neighboring Lithuania. The protests on the streets grew to become the biggest anti-government protests in Belarus’s history.
Lukashenko brutally cracked down . Police used tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades, batons, and rubber bullets against protesters; they arrested people indiscriminately and tortured them. It was worse for protest leaders, some of whom were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.
The repression extended to the press. The army fired rubber bullets at journalists, smashed their cameras, confiscated memory cards, shut down web sites, arrested and physically abused journalists. International correspondents from the BBC, Associated Press, and European outlets were expelled from the country. Exhausted by the hard work of repression, Belarus’s government decided there would be no more independent journalism inside its borders: starting in October 2020, the government said all journalists would be licensed by the state.
This is the environment in which Roman Protasevich worked. He is the leader of Nexta, a channel with over two million subscribers on the social media site Telegram. The channel features user-generated photos, videos, and stories from the protests; it was one of the few places to get legitimate information during the protests. Protasevich lived in exile in Lithuania; he knew he would be arrested if he ever set foot in Lukashenko’s Belarus.
What he didn’t know is that he’d be arrested for simply flying through Belarusian airspace. He had been in Athens to attend an economic conference and was flying directly from the conference back home to Lithuania. Though both Greece and Lithuania are EU member states, the flight between the two countries passes through Belarusian airspace.
Roman Protasevich now faces fifteen years in prison in Belarus. Obviously under duress, he appeared on state television with bruises on his head and neck, stating that he had been treated fairly.
The hijacking was a stunning act, even by the standards of the modern strongman. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, called the hijacking “utterly unacceptable.” The governments of Lithuania, Greece, Poland, Germany, France, Ireland, and others condemned the action and called for a strong response. The US Secretary of State called it a “brazen and shocking act.” Ryanair’s boss called it “aviation piracy.” The United Nations agency in charge of air travel says the act may have violated the Chicago Convention, an agreement governing international aviation. The EU is considering adding to the sanctions it had already imposed after the 2020 sham election. The US has already extended its sanctions. Ukraine stopped buying electricity generated in Belarus in response.
Not everyone was against the hijacking. A leader of RT, the Russian government’s international mouthpiece, said she was “jealous of Belarus” and said Lukashenko had “played it beautifully.” A member of Russia’s parliament called the move a “brilliant special operation.” Russia’s foreign minister took the occasion to affirm that Russia and Belarus share “common history and spiritual values.”
A worrying trend
This seems to be another chapter in a worrying trend of dictator governments taking vengeance on opponents even if it means infringing on the sovereignty of other countries. It reminds me of when the Saudi government murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul—another case where they somewhat feebly tried to cover up their involvement.
I can’t believe this guy is 26 years old, too, Roman Protasevich. He is extremely brave; the world knows his name, now. He is in for some tough times at the hands of the Belarusian government. If there is one silver lining, it’s that he’s now too famous to be assassinated, kind of like Alexei Navalny in Russia .
Great stories make learning English fun
