The story of the Belarusian dispatcher Oleg Galegov, who landed a Ryanair flight in Minsk, with the former editor-in-chief of the NEXTA Telegram channel Roman Protasevich, will play an important role in summing up the results of the IKAO investigation. Stanislav Byshok, Executive Director of the International Monitoring Organization CIS-EMO, told Lente.ru about this.
According to the political scientist, now the investigators have important testimony of a living person, given under oath. Byshok is sure that everyone understood from the very beginning that there were no reports of mining, and the landing of the plane was the result of an operation by the Belarusian special services.
But understanding alone is not enough, evidence or testimony of a participant was needed, and now they are. This is no longer some kind of reasoning of journalists or political activists.
Stanislav ByshokExecutive Director of the International Monitoring Organization CIS-EMO
The political scientist does not believe that the publication of Galegov’s testimony was deliberately delayed until a certain point. He emphasized that there is extensive bureaucracy in European countries, including in judicial histories, and the delay is due precisely to this. “I don’t see any connection here with the events of recent days or the current political moment,” Byshok said.
Dispatcher Galegov called the landing of the flight with Protasevich a special operation of the KGB
Information about the testimony of Galegov was previously published by The New York Times, citing sources in the European power structures. According to him, the message conveyed to the pilot of the plane about the possible presence of a bomb on board was deliberately false. Back in the summer of 2021, the dispatcher illegally crossed the Belarusian-Polish border, after which he contacted the US Embassy in Warsaw.
The information told by Galegov was partially confirmed by the representative of the Polish security service Stanislav Zarin. According to Zarin, the country’s authorities managed to obtain testimony from a person who was “a direct witness to the events in the air traffic control tower in Minsk.” The witness said that the actions in the tower were directed by a KGB officer who received instructions over the phone. It was this officer who ordered the transmission of a false bomb report on board.
In Belarus, the accusations were called information stuffing
Head of the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Transport and Communications Artem Sikorsky statedthat for any person connected with civil aviation, this information is “meaningless and ridiculous.” “The decision to land in Minsk was made by the aircraft commander. The dispatcher cannot put pressure on decision making, especially in the context of a threat to aviation security, ”he said.
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According to Sikorsky, the stuffing is connected with the fact that at present the Belarusian side has requested from the ICAO commission data of objective control, including negotiations between the Vilnius dispatcher and the pilot and in-cabin negotiations of the crew members. “Demonstrate that we exerted some kind of pressure, threatened to use military aircraft, and so on. But this is not the case, ”the official said.
Plane Incident Causes Sanctions Against Belarus
A Ryanair plane, en route from Athens to Vilnius, landed at the Minsk airport on May 23 after reporting an explosive device on board. A MiG-29 fighter was raised for escort; after the landing of the liner, the information about mining was not confirmed. On board the plane were Russian woman Sofya Sapega and the creator of the NEXTA Telegram channel Roman Protasevich, they were detained immediately after landing. Later, the girl admitted that she was running a Telegram channel in which the data of the Belarusian security forces were published.
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On June 25, it became known that the court decided to soften the measure of restraint and released Protasevich and Sapega under house arrest. Later, Protasevich gave an interview, where he confessed to organizing the riots, and added that he wanted to “fix everything and live an ordinary calm life.” Protasevich’s mother stated that he was tortured in the pre-trial detention center. Sapega was finally charged under a number of articles.
On June 18, the European Union approved sanctions against the largest Belarusian enterprises. We are talking about the spheres of oil, gas, potash production and telecommunications. The EU also plans to impose restrictions on large companies in the country, freeze assets and prohibit travel to the territory of the countries of the union for some individuals and legal entities. The introduction of sanctions was explained by the incident with Protasevich and Sapieha.
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