Russia calls on West to refrain from double standards, assess the incident connected to the emergency landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk without emotions and cooperate with Belarusian aviation authorities, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th May, 2021) Russia calls on West to refrain from double standards, assess the incident connected to the emergency landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk without emotions and cooperate with Belarusian aviation authorities, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said on Monday.
"We call on our Western partners to refrain from applying 'double standards' and to take measures to soberly, without emotion, assess the situation on the basis of all available materials in cooperation with the Belarusian aviation authorities, demonstrating openness and readiness to interact," Zakharova said in a statement.
Roman Protasevich, the founder of a Telegram channel that is labeled extremist in Belarus, was detained in Minsk on Sunday, when his flight had to make an emergency landing in the Belarusian capital. The bomb threat that caused the stop turned out to be fake.
"We took note of the information about the detention by the Belarusian special services of one of the founders of the telegram channel 'NEXTA' R. Protasevich, who was on board and was on the list of persons involved in extremist activities. We consider this issue to be an internal affair of Belarus," Zakharova added.
The spokeswoman also said that the actions of Belarusian aviation authorities during the emergency landing "were in line with international standards".
"The coordinated reaction to these events by representatives of a number of Western countries and international organizations, including the EU, NATO and the OSCE, is surprising. They demand the release of the detained R. Protasevich and introduce the most firm additional sanctions against Belarus and the Belavia airline. I would like to remind you that they reacted differently to similar events that had taken place earlier in other countries. And there were many such examples," Zakharova said.
