Roman Protasevich was a Russian spy, according to Lukashenko(Image: social media /east2west news)
A Russian spy was planted onboard a Ryanair flight which was forced to make an emergency landing, according to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
The Ryanair flight FR4978 was en route from Athens to Lithuanian capital Vilnius when it was met with a MiG-29 war plane after crossing into Belarus‘ airspace. The plane was forced to land under the false claim there was a bomb onboard.
The notorious incident in 2021 led to the arrest of two Lukashenko “foes” immediately after the aircraft landed in Minsk, but it has since emerged one of them was a Russian spy.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Protasevich was actually a KGB spy(Image: Getty Images)
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The Boeing 737-800, with 132 passengers onboard, was forced to undertake an emergency landing in a “state-sponsored hijacking”.
Prominent Russian “dissident” Roman Protasevich, then 26, and his law student girlfriend Sofia Sapega, 23 at the time, a Russian citizen, were detained. Now, Lukashenko – a close ally of Vladimir Putin – has claimed that Protasevich was actually a Russian agent.
The Belarusian despot claimed Protasevich was posing as an opposition leader who ran a popular anti-Lukashenko Telegram channel.
Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega were forced off the flight and arrested(Image: social media; east2west news)
The dictator – who has controlled Belarus for more than 30 years – said: “Remember when they imposed sanctions on us for [state airline] Belavia? They imposed them because we detained opposition leader [Roman] Protasevich. We detained him, along with his girlfriend. Remember? [In fact], Protasevich is our intelligence officer. Should we have detained him? I authorised the operation [to force the Ryanair plane to land in Belarus].”
Protasevich “had been working undercover among the self-exiled opposition”. Lukashenko added: “We were accused of detaining an opposition member, but he was not our opposition member. We didn’t detain an opposition member.” Despite this claim, in June 2021, Protasevic appeared on state TV and confessed his crimes while praising Lukashenko – with signs of cuts and bruises on his wrists.
Terrified tourists found out they were being forced to land in the authoritarian state by a Belarus MiG fighter back in 2021. After Protasevich, now 30, and Sapega were handcuffed and taken off the plane, the aircraft was allowed to continue to Vilnius.
The dictator made the stunning admission four years after the shocking incident(Image: Pul Pervogo; e2w news)
In May 2023, Protasevich was charged with organising mass unrest and “extremist” activities and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was pardoned by Lukashenko the same month, indicating he had been colluding with the Belarus authorities.
Sapega was charged with “inciting social hatred”, illegally collecting and disseminating personal information without consent, and other allegations for her alleged role in a Telegram channel which published personal data of security officials. She was sentenced to eight years in jail but 13 months later was pardoned and allowed home to Russia. Sapega, now 27, is believed to have been in the dark about her lover’s supposed double life as a spy.
Huge sanctions were imposed on Lukashenko as a result of forcing down the Ryanair jet. At the time, Belarus insisted there was a warning of a bomb onboard, a claim widely discredited.
The Ryanair flight had been travelling from Athens to Vilnius before it was forced to land in Minsk(Image: Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)
This latest admission appears to show Lukashenko shooting himself in the foot, since the resulting Western sanctions cost Belarus as much as 10 per cent of its GDP. The sanctions are still in place, notably on his state airline Belavia.
Protasevich confirmed Lukashenko’s claim that he is an intelligence officer and said: “Yes, I can confirm this information, but at the present time, that is all I can say.” In 2021, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary called the incident “state-sponsored hijacking”, saying: “The pilot was put under, I would say, considerable pressure – not overtly but covertly – with the suggestion that he really should divert and land in Minsk.
“He wasn’t instructed to do so. But he wasn’t left with any great alternatives.” The Belarus state security service retains the Soviet acronym of KGB.