Looking for a reason to impose sanctions against Belarus, the West used the landing of the Ryanair flight with Roman Protasevich on board. Lukashenko made such a claim in an interview with BBC journalist Stephen Rosenberg on October 23, 2024, discussing behind-the-scenes negotiations with Western representatives.
According to Lukashenko, on May 23, 2021, the plane that was flying from Athens to Vilnius, reached its destination.
“Do you have evidence that my fighter jets intercepted this plane on my orders? Listen, you are complete madmen! This plane was flying to Vilnius, right? Right. Why didn't you land it in Vilnius? After all, it turned around over Vilnius and returned to Minsk. Why didn't you land it there?” Lukashenko questioned.
In late May 2021, Lukashenko told a different story regarding the landing of the Ryanair flight:
“In the flight area, as you well know, there is the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant. The turn of this plane occurred near it. And what if something happened? Is Chernobyl not enough for us?”
Neither the first nor the second story is true. The Boeing 737, flying from Athens to Vilnius, turned around over Lida. It did not leave Belarusian airspace. This is confirmed by the flight route of this plane.
The distance from Lida to the Astravets Nuclear Power Plant is about one hundred kilometers in a straight line. The flight path did not pass near the nuclear plant.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) investigated the Ryanair flight's landing at Minsk airport and concluded that the report of a bomb threat on the plane was deliberately false. The ICAO report includes testimony from a Belarusian air traffic controller, who claimed that he was warned about a plane with a bomb on board crossing Belarusian airspace even before the Boeing 737 took off from Athens. Additionally, various countries' airports received letters threatening an explosion.
