DISINFO: Pratasevich could tell how the West supported and coordinated protests in Belarus
SUMMARY
The detention of the founder of the NEXTA Telegram channel Roman Pratasevich looks like a good-planned operation of Belarusian special forces. Minsk hopes that Pratasevich could tell a lot about how the West supported and coordinated protests in Belarus. It could influence his further fate.
The operation was risky but today in the context of big geopolitical interests all play a game without rules. In this case, the end of Pratasevich story justifies the means.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative about the West being behind protests in Belarus.
The protests in Belarus erupted to contest the results of the presidential election on 9 August 2020, which were not monitored by independent experts, and are largely considered fraudulent by both international observers and a big part of the Belarusian society. On 19 August 2020, the European Council called Belarusian elections neither free nor fair.
As for the detention of the founder of the NEXTA Telegram channel Roman Pratasevich, he 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 the 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. Belarusian authorities persecuting him due to activities in reporting on the 2020 presidential election on his NEXTA channel on Telegram used by the country's opposition. The Belarusian security service, KGB, has listed him as a terrorist (Read more about Pratasevich here). Together with Roman Pratasevich his girlfriend Sofia Sapega was detained; she is a citizen of the Russian Federation .
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.
Disinformation narratives supporting Belarus conspiracy about Western powers or other countries behind protests in Minsk. See earlier cases: The CIA and US-financed organisations planned an August 2020 uprising in Belarus; Poland interferes in the affairs of Belarus supporting particular politicians and Telegram channels; Lithuania and Poland are competing for the destabilisation of Belarus to pleas the US.