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Lavrov cautions against a hasty judgement in Ryanair flight emergency landing in Minsk

Similar situations had already happened earlier, the top diplomat pointed out

SOCHI, May 24./TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cautioned on Monday against any hasty judgments on the situation with an emergency landing in Minsk of a Ryanair flight with a co-founder of an extremist Telegram channel on board.

"We are in favor of having this situation assessed not in a rush, in a hurry, but based on all the available information," Lavrov told a news conference.

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Russian embassy addresses Belarus over detention of Russian citizen

Similar situations had already happened earlier, the top diplomat pointed out. "The best-known incident occurred in 2013 when at the insistence of the US, Austria forced a plane carrying the Bolivian president to land without any apologies whatsoever coming later, as well as an incident that is not much spoken about, when a plane of a Belarusian carrier was forced to land in Kiev in 2016, since the Ukrainian Security Service was interested in an Armenian national on board. This national was taken off the plane, and the plane continued its flight without any apologies following," Lavrov noted.

"It is important to look into this situation soberly, all the more since Belarusian authorities are ready to provide all necessary information," he went on to say.

A Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight that took off from Athens was forced to make an emergency landing at Minsk International Airport on Sunday after a reported bomb threat. The plane landed safely and no bomb was found on board. Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which is recognized as extremist in Belarus, was among the passengers. Protasevich, currently living in Lithuania and wanted in Belarus, was detained after the airliner landed in the Belarusian capital. The plane left Minsk and continued on to Vilnius late on Sunday.

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