Belarus' "Ryanair hijacking must be sanctioned" and the opposition blogger it snatched must be freed, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said.
Her unusually strident remarks came after Belarus president Aleksander Lukashenko shocked Europe on Sunday (23 May) by forcing a passenger flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying more than 140 people to make an emergency landing in Belarus instead.
The Ryanair flight 4978 was also carrying a Belarusian opposition blogge...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.