#раман пратасевіч

[tomorrowusa]

Historian and author Timothy D. Snyder on Twitter.

It’s difficult to imagine Russia not having played some part in the hijacking of Ryanair flight 4978 over Belarus and the kidnapping of Roman Protasevich.     

Belarus’s dictator Alexander Lukashenko is a lot like Trump. He’s a flabby and buffoonish ignorant loudmouth who thinks that public acts of repression make him appear strong. In fact, such people are personally weak and go cowering in the basement as soon as things start to look dicey. Another thing they have in common: both Lukashenko and Trump have easily been manipulated by Vladimir Putin.

Actions like this air piracy incident are only likely to make the opposition to Lukashenko go more underground.

Roughly two-thirds of the land border of Belarus is with Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Lukashenko can’t seal the country off like North Korea.

Old school technology like AM radio can still penetrate most of the country. The pro-democracy opposition will adapt.

Lukashenko may keep going for a while but the days when he could rule comfortably are gone. Most people hate him and will look for cracks in his régime to get rid of him when the opportunity arises. When the end comes for Lukashenko, it will happen relatively quickly. He needs to decide whether he prefers to end up like Viktor Yanukovych or like Nicolae Ceausescu.

BTW, I’ve read two of Prof. Snyder’s books and strongly recommend both of them.

On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

[delightfullyuniquenut]

The Migration Wave From Belarus

The Migration Wave From Belarus

Around 40 flights from the Middle East land at Minsk airport everyday. Thousands of migrants amass on the border to Lithaunia, Latvia and Poland to put pressure on their border controls. The numbers keep rising because Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko issues plenty ‘tourist visas’ to load his weapon, the weapon of mass migration. The migrants are retaliation for EU’s sanction which…

[tomorrowusa]

Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko basically hijacked an airliner to kidnap an opposition blogger, Roman Protasevich, who was on an international flight from Greece to Lithuania.

The Belarusian authorities falsely claimed there was a bomb on Ryanair Flight 4978 and sent a MiG-29 fighter jet to force it to land in Minsk. Upon landing, Lukashenko’s agents arrested Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.

This is a blatant violation of international law by the psychopath Lukashenko who has clung to power since 1994.

The EU has imposed new sanctions and more will likely follow.

EU imposes sanctions on Belarus after plane diversion

Non-EU members such as the UK and Ukraine are taking similar measures.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken issued a statement condemning the Belarusian régime’s air piracy. The US already has a Level 4 travel alert advising Americans “Do not Travel to Belarus due to COVID-19“ because of the régime’s poor handling of the pandemic. President Joe Biden has also denounced this act in a White House statement.

Belarus is basically a client state of Putin’s Russia. We shouldn’t be surprised by the danger to air travel which this hijacking represents. In 2014 pro-Putin separatists in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” on Ukrainian territory shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 killing 298 people.

If you are an American, contact your House or Senate member and demand tough sanctions against the régime in Belarus in coordination with measures by the EU and UK.