The extraordinary forced landing of a commercial flight with a Belarusian dissident aboard escalated into one of the biggest flare-ups in East-West tensions in recent years.
The tray tables were being raised and the seat backs returned to their upright positions as passengers on Ryanair Flight 4978 prepared for the scheduled landing in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. Then the plane made an abrupt U-turn.
For many passengers, it initially seemed like one of those unexpected delays in airline travel. But after the pilot announced the plane had been diverted to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, one passenger – Roman Protasevich, a prominent Belarusian opposition journalist who had been living in exile since 2019 – grew terrified, certain that he faced arrest.
