On October 31, during a trip to the Lepel district, Alexander Lukashenko returned to the story of the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk in May 2021 and said that Roman Protasevich had allegedly been an officer of Belarusian intelligence. According to Lukashenko, Protasevich completed an assignment in Greece, received new instructions and was flying back via Vilnius, while the operation to detain him was carried out as cover.
“Protasevich is an employee of our intelligence service... We had to conduct an operation to detain him,” Lukashenko said.
He linked those remarks to the sanctions imposed after the Ryanair incident, which affected, among others, the airline Belavia. Lukashenko indicated that he considers those restrictions unjustified.
He also commented on Lithuania’s decision to close the border with Belarus until at least the end of November after weather balloons were used to move cigarettes across the frontier. In a statement on October 27, Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry described the move as a response to a “hybrid attack” and the inaction of Belarusian authorities. Lukashenko, by contrast, claimed the cigarettes had been bought legally in Belarus and that Lithuanian participants in the scheme organized their transfer across the border.
Lukashenko then accused Poland of derailing an arrangement to free journalist Andrzej Poczobut in exchange for several Belarusians convicted in Poland in espionage cases. He said Warsaw had also promised to reopen the Bobrowniki-Bierestavitsa checkpoint, but later withdrew from the deal.
He concluded by saying that Belarus, together with Russia, would defend its territory and signaled readiness to discuss a broader arrangement with the United States if Minsk’s interests were taken into account.