EU leaders agreed to cut air links with Belarus on Monday, as leader Alexander Lukashenko’s regime paraded a dissident journalist arrested after his flight was forced to land in Minsk.
Strongman Lukashenko sparked international outrage by dispatching a fighter jet Sunday to intercept a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying wanted reporter Roman Protasevich, 26, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
European leaders meeting in Brussels hit back by agreeing to ban Belarusian airlines from the bloc’s airspace and urged EU-based carriers not to fly over its airspace, while US president overnight sharply condemned Belarus.
The bloc also said it would adopt further “targeted economic sanctions” against the Belarusian authorities to add to the 88 regime figures and seven companies already on a blacklist over a crackdown on opposition.
The move came as Belarusian state television broadcast a 30-second video of Protasevich, who had been living between Lithuania and Poland, confirming that he was in prison in Minsk and “confessing” to charges of organising mass unrest.
The footage showed Protasevich – who could face 15 years in jail – with dark markings visible on his forehead, saying he was being treated “according to the law”.
“This is how (Roman) looks under physical and moral pressure,” exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya wrote on Twitter.
