GENEVA, May 26. /TASS/. The Swiss Foreign Ministry does not have any information about threats of possible explosions aboard the Ryanair flight that recently emergency landed in Minsk, Pierre-Alain Eltschinger, spokesperson for the ministry, told TASS on Wednesday.
When asked what steps Bern plans to take after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko revealed that the message, notifying authorities about an explosive device aboard the Ryanair flight traveling from Athens to Vilnius that had to emergency land in Minsk, came from Switzerland, he said, "The Swiss authorities have no knowledge of a bomb threat on the Ryanair Athens-Vilnius flight. Therefore, there have been no announcements from the Swiss authorities to the Belarusian authorities on this matter."
Lukashenko said on Wednesday that the bomb threat came from Switzerland.
On May 23, a Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight that took off from Athens was forced to make an emergency landing at Minsk International Airport after a reported bomb threat. A Mikoyan MiG-29 jet was scrambled to escort the plane. The bomb threat came up empty after the aircraft had been inspected and no explosives were found. The Investigative Committee of Belarus opened a criminal case over charges of an intentionally false bomb threat.
Later, Minsk disclosed that the plane carried Nexta Telegram channel (deemed extremist in Belarus) co-founder Roman Protasevich. He was detained by law enforcement agents. Russian national Sofia Sapega was taken into custody with him and placed into a detention facility with the State Security Committee (KGB) for two months. Following the incident, some countries started either suspending air service with Belarus or recommending their airlines avoid Belarusian airspace.