Tuesday, May 25, 2021
An arrest and the consequences
“Russia must now position itself clearly”
The SPD calls for an international investigation into the forced landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk. “If it turns out that Russia was involved in the incident, one also has to talk about the consequences,” says the SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Schraps. He also advocates a meeting of the UN Security Council on the subject. “Then Russia would have to position itself clearly and make it clear whether it approves or condemns such interference in international air traffic.”
ntv.de: What is Lukashenko’s aim in kidnapping Roman Protassewitsch?
Johannes Schraps: Lukashenko came under pressure from the demonstrations after the election in August last year. For him, it’s been about staying in power ever since. Obviously, any means is fine for him. You have already seen that in the brutal handling of the protests.
Will the arrest of Roman Protassevich further weaken the Belarusian opposition movement?
I believe that this will actually strengthen the cohesion among the opposition members who oppose Lukashenko. Nonetheless, Protassevich is an important symbolic figure and an important figure for the resistance in Belarus. This of course weakens, but it will encourage the opposition to become more involved.
The reason for the forced landing of the Ryanair plane, which is not even credible at first glance, suggests that Lukashenko doesn’t care what people in the West or even in Belarus think about him. Is someone like that to be impressed with sanctions at all?
Internationally, Lukashenko was already on the sidelines. Indeed, with his actions, he clearly shows that he has nothing to do with returning to the international community. Because with the forced landing of the Ryanair plane, state authorities have used terrorist means. The international community cannot accept that. It is therefore a good thing that the EU special summit was able to deal with Belarus so quickly and that it took decisions directly. It remains to be seen whether Lukashenko will be impressed by this. But it will definitely hit him – for example, the freezing of accounts, which has now also affected his family.
Do such sanctions have any effect?
In principle, sanctions tend to have a long-term effect because they weaken the financial structures of a regime, for example. I assume that Lukashenko and his circles of power will be affected when they are financially restricted and their freedom of movement restricted as a result of sanctions and can no longer take advantage of things that they may have come to love. We shouldn’t assume that Lukashenko will release Roman Protassevich in a few days due to the sanctions. But the EU still had to make it clear that red lines had been crossed here.
Would it be a supplement to sanctions to specifically support opposition Belarusian exile media, such as the Nexta information channel?
There are already many ways in which one can support democratic structures in Belarus. To this end, there was a motion from the coalition parliamentary groups in the Bundestag last November, which other parliamentary groups also supported. We have thus anchored money in the budget to support civil society in Belarus.
Can Belarus carry out such an action as the forced landing of a passenger plane by staging a planned terrorist attack without first obtaining permission from Moscow?
In principle, Lukashenko could certainly do that, but he still has to be sure that the person behind him will continue to stand by him. In late summer and February, when he humbly stood next to the Russian President at his meetings with Putin, you could see how much he depends on support from Moscow. Because of the international dimension of the forced landing, the UN Security Council should deal with the issue. Then Russia would have to position itself clearly and make it clear whether it approves or condemns such interference in international air traffic.
If the Russian government had a hand in the game, shouldn’t the West at least direct its sanctions against Russia in order to urge Putin to put pressure on Lukashenko himself?
To do this, an international investigation into this incident is first necessary. In such a case, it should certainly be easier and clearer to prove this than in other cases – for example when flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. In this case it is clear that a state aircraft, the MiG, ascended to force the landing. If it turns out that Russia was involved in the incident, one also has to talk about the consequences.
Hubertus Volmer spoke to Johannes Schraps
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