DISINFO: Pratasevich confesses he aimed to topple Lukashenko and was a member of Azov
SUMMARY
Raman Pratasevich has confessed that he is responsible for organising anti-government demonstrations against Aleksandar Lukashenko in Belarus and he was a member of a conspiracy with Svetlana Tikhanonouskaya to topple the government. He was also a member of the Azov Battalion in Ukraine but he said he did not fight in Donbas.
RESPONSE
Disinformation targeting Belarusian dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich.
Raman Pratasevich is a co-founder of the opposition Nexta channel on Telegram, which played an important role in providing information and broadcasting huge opposition protests against the incumbent Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenko in 2020.
Pratasevich fled Belarus for Poland in 2019 due to pressure from the authorities. He later relocated to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, where Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is also based.
There is no substantial evidence to suggest that Mr. Protasevich ever participated in the military activity of the Azov battalion. Pratasevich. himself said in an interview with a Russian journalist in 2020 that he had been in the war zone in Eastern Ukraine as a freelance journalist. This was further confirmed by Andriy Biletskyy, former commander of Azov. He said Pratasevich had been present in the Donbas warzone, but his activity there was limited to covering the course of the conflict as a journalist. See further investigation by an independent outlet Meduza.
Roman Pratasevich, was detained in Minsk airport when flying from Athens to Vilnius. On Sunday, May 23, 2021, the Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was forced to turn back before crossing the Lithuanian border and land in the Belarusian capital. The pretext for landing in Minsk was a false report about a bomb on board. At the moment when the plane changed course, it was closer to Vilnius airport than to Minsk. The plane was forced by a Belarusian military aircraft to land in Minsk. Roman Protasevich was detained during a repeated security check of passengers.
The EU condemned Belarusian action against civil plane and the detention of Pratasevich. In a declaration on behalf of the EU on the forced diversion of Ryanair flight FR4978 to Minsk on 23 May 2021, the High Representative called for the immediate release of Mr Pratasevich. This was followed by a European Council statement, in which the EU leaders called for targeted individual and economic sanctions as well as to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by these.
For more stories on Raman Pratasevich and his detainment after the forced landing of Ryanair flight FR 4978 in Minsk see here.