This is Belarus, which is a sovereign country. Technically they are part of a “union state” with Russia but for all intents and purposes they are considered peers. They are definitely not part of Russia. What does Nordstream have to do with anything?
At first glance it doesn’t look pretty, because disrupting international flights doesn’t seem like a legit law enforcement method to get a fugitive criminal.
On the other hand, the story is spinned by the mainstream media in a very biased way.
According to the original reports the captain of the plane itself sent a distress call and requested landing in Minsk over violence on board or a bomb threat.
That makes a huge difference with the ‘official’ story pushed by Lithuania, saying the plane was intercepted by a fighter jet and forced landed.
The first story is still a little bit fishy, because there might be valid suspicions that the distress was provoked for the purpose to make the plane land on the Belarusian territory indeed.
That is the ground for investigation to find out what was really the case.
Unless there would be direct evidence to the complicity of the Belarusian government in the incident, everyone registering outrage needs to shut up.
Not that long time ago Ukraine in coordination with FBI planned the similar operation against a Turkish Airlines flight from Minsk to Istanbul, planning to intercept the plane and arrest a bunch of ‘Wagner mercenaries’ who in fact has been Donbas rebels. It failed to work due to a gross incompetence on the Ukrainian intelligence, leaked the plan to the Belarusian counter-intelligence and media. Nonetheless, the same propagandists praised the Ukrainian plan, saying how great it was and it only failed due to ‘the Russian moles’ in administration.
Before calling Belarus a ‘rogue country’ which needs to be ‘expelled from ICAO’ they better look at their own failed state, although I understand it is not going to happen in the era of the Orwellian double standards.
The big difference is that in the Belarusian incident all we have is mere suspicions, in the Ukrainian situation everything is clear, yet, nobody is calling to expel Ukraine from ICAO for some reason.
Not to mention that the person detained in Belarus is a terrorist insurrector, the people Ukraine tried to arrest in the similar fashion are merely legit combatants formerly belonging to a rebel group.
All in all, I can’t exclude a provocation by the Ukrainian intelligence, to discredit Minsk as a host of Donbas peace talks.