Key Events: May 24-30
Forbidden tree - Artist: Lilia Kvatsabay
Top Stories
May 25: Belarus is on the agenda of President Biden’s meeting with Putin in Switzerland
Belarus will be discussed during the upcoming US/Russia summit in Switzerland. President Joe Biden is expected to discuss the situation in Belarus, given that Russian allies in Belarus grounded an international Ryanair flight to arrest a journalist on board. Many hope that Biden will confront Putin for his role in enabling the Lukashenka regime, as the crackdown on dissidents intensifies there.
May 25: Belarus dissident’s ‘confession’ video suggests coercion and torture, experts and advocates say
The 29-second video surfaced Monday evening, in which Roman Protasevich says that he is being treated “as correctly as possible” and is not experiencing any health problems. Human rights groups, scholars, and family members of the victim have been skeptical of this report. This supposed confession video fits a longer history of coerced confessions practiced since Soviet times.
May 24: EU agrees to impose sanctions on Belarus, bars EU airlines from country’s airspace
In response to the forced landing of a Ryanair aircraft and the arrest of Roman Protasevich, 27 European Union leaders agreed to significantly toughen sanctions on Belarus. They would target Belarus’s biggest companies and bar its national airline from flying over or landing in the European Union territory. The European Union will have the final say on the list of personal sanctions. However, the European sanctions may not take effect for a month or more, and the U.S. administration hasn’t indicated when it might act.
May 24: Belarus and Latvia expel each others’ diplomats as row over journalist’s arrest deepens
Belarus expelled all Latvian diplomats after Latvian government officials replaced Belarusian state flag with the historical white-red-white in Riga, where the IIHF hockey championship is currently taking place. Riga mayor Martins Stakis justified the move as a show of solidarity with Belarusian people in their fight against the dictatorship and also in response to the forced grounding of the Ryanair passenger jet in Belarus.
May 27: Svetlana Alexievich and Angelina Jolie discuss situation in Belarus
In the discussion hosted by Amnesty International, Svetlana Alexievich and Angelina Jolie talked about the flight of political prisoners in Belarus and ways to help them.
Analysis
May 26: NPR: What Russia stands to gain by backing Belarus
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Grabrielius Landsbergis made an appearance on NPR’s Here & Now on Wednesday to express his support of the sanctions. In her interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, Fiona Hill explained how this incident relates to broader tensions over democracy in Europe, Russia-Belarus relations, and how Alexander Lukashenko’s fate may prefigure that of Vladimir Putin’s.
May 24: Atlantic Council: State-sponsored air piracy: Belarus dictator Lukashenka demonstrates his defiance
In response to Belarus intercepting an EU passenger jet to land in Minsk and arresting Roman Protasevich, European leaders adopted a series of sanctions against the Lukashenka’s regime. Russian involvement has also been a topic of discussion. Some observers expect the crisis to deepen Lukashenka’s dependence on the Kremlin and cement Russia’s hold on Belarus.
May 23: The Washington Post: One more international norm gets busted in the skies over Belarus
Belarus’ grounding of the passenger plane marks a point when yet another international norm gets busted. As multiple dictatorship regimes around the world continue to show blatant disregard to the international norms, it is important to keep them in check in order to not see the repeat of the events that eventually led to World War II. The US and EU need to stand firm and send a clear message to Lukashenka that his recent behavior will not be tolerated.
May 24: Lawfare: Belarus and the hijacking of Ryanair flight FR4978: A Preliminary International Law Analysis
In the context of the airplane interception and Protasevich’s arrest, a number of issues come into focus, among them the rule of law in international affairs. Belarus has clearly breached both the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation and the 1971 Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation. In practical terms, this means Protasevich and Sapega ought to be released from Belarusian custody and be allowed to travel to Vilnius.
May 26: CEPA: Lukashenka is vulnerable, if the West gets serious
By banning flights across Belarus on 25 May, the European Council made an important first step in denouncing Lukashenka’s provocative actions. It is also essential that the West now supports and empowers President Tsikhanouskaya so that Belarusian democracy can start developing on the outside. Additionally, the West could engage in major operations to identify, freeze, and seize Lukashenka’s inner circle assets and turn them over to the government of President Tsikhanouskaya.
Repressions in Belarus
May 28: Another victim of the Lukashenka regime: young boy commits suicide because of police harassment
The 18-year-old Minsk resident Dmitry Stakhovsky committed suicide. In his suicide note, a teenager blames for his death the Investigative Committee that accused him of rioting.
May 28: At least 15: Deaths linked to post-election protests in Belarus
On May 26, Belarusians paid their last respects to Vitold Ashurak, a political prisoner and the Belarusian People’s Front activist. Last week, he died under unclear circumstances in the penal colony in Shklou. On the same day, the suicide of 18-year-old Dzmitry Stakhouski, a suspect in a ‘mass riots’ criminal case, was reported. Belsat gives the names of those whose deaths happened to be related to the suppression of the post-election protests in Belarus.
On Tuesday, Belarusian Christian Democracy party leader Pavel Sevyarynets and European Belarus civil campaign coordinator Yauhen Afnahel have been sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in a medium security penal colony for ‘organizing mass riots’.
Belarus and Russia
May 27: Putin sides with Belarus dictator over air piracy as Ukraine rejects Minsk talks
Ukraine seeks to move peace talks with Russia away from Minsk. Suitability of Minsk as a neutral venue has already been in question since August 2020, and the forced diversion of the Athens-Vilnius flight to Minsk has renewed the concerns about Lukashenka’s growing reliance on Russia for his political survival.