Russian airlines continue flying to/via Belarus as usual - Rosaviatsiya
MOSCOW. May 24 (Interfax) - Russian airlines continue flying to and via Belarus as usual, the Federal Air Transport Service (Rosaviatsiya) press service said in a statement.
"Russian airlines are performing flights to Belarus and via the Belarusian airspace as usual, as agreed on the basis of the bilateral air traffic document," the service said.
A Ryanair flight en route from Athens to Vilnius was forced to land at Minsk airport on Sunday. Reportedly, the plane was forced to land because of a bomb threat.
It became known later that the flight was carrying Roman Protasevich, former editor-in-chief of Telegram channels Nexta and Belarus Golovnogo Mozga (both branded as extremist in Belarus). He was taken into custody.
The European External Action Service has called the forced landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk inadmissible and demanded the immediate release of Protasevich.
A number of European airlines, including Hungarian Wizz Air, Latvian airBaltic and Lithuanian KlasJet, said their flights bypassed the Belarusian airspace on Monday.