[Navy Patriot]

Interesting.

[1Old Pro]

We’re not far behind.

[Kriggerel]

Dictators gonna do what Dictators gonna do...

[Navy Patriot]

Roman Protasevich is wanted in Belarus on extremism charges and stands accused of organizing mass riots and of inciting social hatred.

[Sacajaweau]

None of our business.

[mac_truck]

A reverse Snowden!

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

In the fwiw department, between 1978-79 I flew from Ankara to Roma on Turk Hava. Around I’m guessing Romania, we picked up a Mig21 escort (2). For about 5 minutes. I thought that was interesting...

Then about 3 months later I was on an Italia flt from Roma to Istanbul and the same thing happened.

The second time was a little unnerving. I could easily see the pilot, and he could easily see me.

5.56mm

[montag813]

Data from the flightradar24.com website showed the plane was diverted just two minutes before it was due to cross into Lithuanian airspace.

I wonder what the orders were if they were to ignore the demand and proceed to that airspace

[McGruff]

Another interesting story:

Belarus diversion echoes prior Ukrainian incident involving Belavia 737

By David Kaminski-Morrow24 May 2021

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/belarus-diversion-echoes-prior-ukrainian-incident-involving-belavia-737/143872.article

[Mr. Rabbit]

Not our circus, not our monkeys. Let the Euro-Trash take a break from fellating Putin via the NordStream pipeline to deal with it.

[AZJeep]

Despite what some trolls here are telling, this is unprecedent!
Even Soviets did not do this.
Basically kidnaping civilian airplane and detaining passenger(s), by the Belarus state!
There are protests in Belarus regarding stolen election last Summer. This gentleman was one of the organizers and independent journalist. Like many opposition leaders of Belarus, like the Belarus elected President, he was hiding abroad.
Belarus dictator Lukashenko is cracking on any dissent. People are put to jail for like 20 years just for peaceful protest. And many of them died under suspicious circumstances.
No, in this case there are good guys and bad guys. And Lukashenko is NOT the good guy!
Belarus is the least free country in Europe, also one of the poorest. Lukashenko is the last dictator.

By the way - Belorussian is a language.
The area used to be part of Poland, eventually conquered by the Russia during the triple division of Poland (18th century). Before WWII western half of Belarus belonged to Poland, but was again stolen by Stalin, who created so called Belarus SSR. Belarus language is actually 50-50 mix of Polish and Russian, both Polish and Russian speakers have no trouble understanding.
But Lukashenko is dead set to be part of Russia. He seems mostly speaking just Russian.