MINSK: Belarus’s regime was increasingly isolated on Tuesday as Europe cut air links and calls grew for stronger action over its diversion of an airliner and arrest of a dissident on board.

After weathering a wave of protests and Western sanctions last year, President Alexander Lukashenko faced extraordinary new pressure over Sunday’s rerouting of the Ryanair flight to Minsk and arrest of opposition journalist Roman Protasevich.

More Western leaders joined calls demanding Protasevich’s release, after the European Union agreed at a summit on Monday to ban Belarusian airlines from the bloc and called on EU-based carriers not to fly over its airspace.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned on Tuesday that Lukashenko would pay “a bitter price” for the “heinous” flight diversion.

“Any dictator toying with such ideas must be made to understood that they will pay a bitter price,” he told reporters.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the EU needed to “profoundly redefine” its relationship with Russia and Belarus because “we are at the limits of sanctions policy”.

Air France, Finnair and Singapore Airlines became the latest carriers to suspend flights over Belarus, following Scandinavian airline SAS, Germany’s Lufthansa and Latvia-based regional airline airBaltic.

Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said the international community needed to go further, urging the United States to take action in a call with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Tikhanovskaya called for “comprehensive” international measures to force the regime to give up power.

“This is the time to act,” she said. “Suspension of flights over Belarus doesn’t solve the real problem. The problem is the terrorist regime that rigged elections last year.”

She asked for the Belarusian opposition to be invited to next month’s G7 summit in Britain, an initiative that sources close to the French president said Paris supported.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined calls for Protasevich to be released, warning: “Belarus’s actions will have consequences.” The UN rights office also demanded the immediate release of Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend Sofia Sapega, who was also arrested after the Athens-to-Vilnius flight landed in Minsk.

EU leaders on Monday warned they would adopt further “targeted economic sanctions” against the Belarusian authorities to add to the 88 regime figures and seven companies on a blacklist.

Lukashenko and his allies are already under a series of Western sanctions over a brutal crackdown on opposition protests that followed his disputed re-election to a sixth term last August.

The erratic 66-year-old leader was due to address parliament on Wednesday, in his first comments since a jet was scrambled to intercept the Ryanair flight.

Protasevich, 26, was a co-founder of the Nexta Telegram channel, which helped organise the protests that were the biggest challenge to Lukashenko’s long rule.

He had been living between Poland and Lithuania.

Belarusian state television late on Monday broadcast a 30-second video of Protasevich confirming that he was in prison in Minsk and “confessing” to charges of organising mass unrest.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2021