After almost four days, the President of Belarus made his first public statement today, Tuesday, on the diplomatic thriller with the forced landing of a plane in Minsk and the sanctions imposed by the EU on his country.
Alexander Lukashenko, after defending his decision to bring down the Ryanair aircraft at Minsk airport for the sake of his people, then launched an attack on the West. Speaking to MPs and government officials, claimed that the information about the existence of a bomb on the plane came from Switzerland, adding that the email came from an account on the Protonmail service, owned by a Swiss company. It is an email service started in 2013 in Geneva by scientists working at the CERN facility. Previously, Lukashenko said, Minsk had received a barrage of cyber threats, from email addresses in Poland.
«How should we have reacted?» the Belarusian president asked, adding that «I acted legally to protect people in accordance with international regulations».
He also claimed that the crew of the plane consulted the owner of the plane and the Vilnius airport, but «decided to land in Minsk. The turn he made seems absurd, but why did other airports not accept the plane?».
He called it a lie that a military aircraft forced the Ryanair plane to land in Mishnk, noting that it was simply accompanying it so that the necessary arrangements could be made.
Lukashenko used harsh words for both Protasevic and his partner as well as the reactions and sanctions from the West.
«There was a terrorist on the plane and this was known beyond the borders of Belarus. Everyone will answer for their crimes. It's only a matter of time. Whether there was a bomb or not, if they told me that there was a terrorist on the plane, I would immediately order it to land,» he said.
«I acted lawfully, I protected my people, I acted in accordance with international laws. The aircraft was found near the Belarusian nuclear power plant (NPP).What would happen if the NPP control system was put on full alert?» he asked.
«The West reacted “too quickly”. Let the Western defenders answer: which intelligence agencies were these two working for. Who was paying this bastard who was killing people in Ukraine?» Continuing his attack, Lukashenko said: «The West is trying to get involved in the internal affairs of Belarus once again. We must take the necessary measures to protect the country. We need to protect Belarus. They are upset because their attempted coup failed.
Belarus invites the West to talks
At the same time, according to the Russian news agency RIA, Belarus today (Wednesday) called for talks with the West regarding the aircraft incident, adding that Minsk will restrict imports as well as transit from the country in response to punitive measures by the West,
It was not immediately clear what kind of transit the threat was about, although Russian oil and gas flows through Belarus to Europe.
