UNITED NATIONS, October 29. /TASS/. Western delegations have requested a United Nations Security Council meeting on October 31 to discuss the 2021 Ryanair flight incident, a UN source told TASS.

"The delegations are convening an UNSC meeting [on October 31]," the source said.

On May 23, 2021, a Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight that took off from Athens was forced to make an emergency landing in the Belarusian capital of Minsk after a reported bomb threat. The bomb threat came up empty after the aircraft had landed. The Belarusian authorities specified later that Roman Protasevich, wanted in Belarus as a co-founder of the Nexta Telegram channel, which the Belarusian authorities recognized as extremist, had been among the flight’s passengers. He was detained by Belarusian law enforcement agents together with Russian national Sofia Sapega. Following the incident, the European Union barred Belarusian air companies from operating flights to EU airports and using the European Union’s airspace, and recommended that European air carriers should avoid Belarusian airspace.