Alexander Lukashenko's regime went to great lengths to arrest Raman Pratasevich. On May 23, 2021, Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair plane on its way from Athens to Vilnius, in Lithuania, to land in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, sparking global outrage.
As soon as the plane touched down, Pratasevich, the former editor-in-chief of Nexta, a Belarusian media networkthat was largely distributed via the Telegram platform and had been classified as "extremist" by the Belarusian regime, was escorted off and arrested along with his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.
This Ryanair aircraft was forced to land at Minsk airport in May 2021 Image: PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images
Nexta, which operated from Poland, was the most important news source on the anti-government protests that erupted in August 2020 after the rigged Belarus presidential election. Lukashenko said he had won a landslide victory, but the opposition disputed his claim. Nexta, where Pratasevich worked until September 2020, played a key role in coordinating the anti-government protests and sharing the locations and times of upcoming demonstrations.
In May 2021, Pratasevich — who by this time had already moved to Vilnius with Sapega — traveled to the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece, where exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was due to meet with European politicians.
