Russian President Vladimir Putin compared the incident with the landing of a Ryanair liner in Minsk with the situation that occurred in 2013, when the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales was unplanned to land in Vienna.
The head of the Russian Federation shared his views on the resonant situation during negotiations with his Belarusian counterpart Aleksandr Lukashenko in Sochi, which took place on Friday, May 28.
As the Russian leader noted, there was no reaction from Western countries to the incident with the Morales airliner. “The plane of the President of Bolivia was planted in due time. The President was taken out of the plane and nothing, silence, ”Putin said.
On July 2, 2013, the plane in which Evo Morales was returning from the Moscow Gas Exporting Countries Forum was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Vienna, as Italy, France, Spain and Portugal urgently revoked his permission to use the airspace and airports of their countries. The airliner of the head of Bolivia was eventually inspected, despite the immunity of the head of state: the special services were looking for an ex-employee of the US National Security Agency (NSA) on board, Edward Snowden, who went on the run and whose extradition was demanded by the United States. Snowden was not in the plane, and the board was allowed to continue the flight.
As a result of the landing in Minsk of a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius on May 23, Roman Protasevich, the creator of the NEXTA Telegram channel, was detained. In Belarus, he is accused of creating an extremist group and calling for riots.
