Responding to the “Belarus Hijacking”

I have one major objection to the Washington Post’s editorial on how the U. S. should respond to the incident that took place a few days ago in which the government of Belarus intercepted a Ryanair craft and arrested Roman Protasevich, variously described as a “journalist” or “political agitator” depending on your source:

Mr. Lukashenko’s government transmitted a phony report of a bomb to the crew of Ryanair Flight 4978 as it was flying over Belarus en route to Vilnius, Lithuania. Belarus then deployed a MiG-29 fighter jet to intercept the plane, forcing it to land, whereupon 26-year-old journalist Roman Protasevich was arrested. Mr. Protasevich co-founded Nexta, a channel on the social media platform Telegram that has become a leading source of news about the opposition to Mr. Lukashenko, who stole the presidential election last August to prolong his rule, triggering mass protests and a subsequent crackdown.

With the phony bomb threat, Mr. Lukashenko’s government violated the 1970 Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, which Belarus ratified. It says, “A person commits an offence if he unlawfully and intentionally . . . communicates information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight.” Mr. Lukashenko also potentially violated the terms of the Chicago Convention, the founding post-World War II rules of international aviation, which say that “in case of interception, the lives of persons on board and the safety of aircraft must not be endangered.”

Maybe it’s just slipped my mind but I don’t remember the WaPo reacting that way when the government of the Ukraine did almost the very same thing a couple of years back. It’s not the hypocrisy to which I object—it’s the piece’s caption: “It’s time to respond forcefully to Belarus’s wily and malevolent dictator” and the word “forcefully”. I don’t think we should contemplate using force against any state that used to be part of Russia. Maybe they’re just writing figuratively. Professional writers should choose their words more carefully.

I don’t know what the U. S. response should be if any. The incident is already straining EU-Russian relations. Maybe we should just sit quietly by as events play out. If we do determine that something must be done, we might consider getting our facts straight before acting. In another piece I’ve read about the affair today there was a characterization of a West-leaning Belarus as “Putin’s worst nightmare”. Is that the case or is a Russia-leaning Belarus the worst nightmare for people trying to orchestrate the same sort of fascist putsch as the one that ousted the Russia-leaning government of Ukraine?

My only suggestion is more carrots, fewer sticks. Economic sanctions applied against Russia haven’t been particularly effective because Russia’s economy has been a basketcase for 200 years. IMO a friendly, prosperous Russia is a lot more in our interest (as well as less in the Chinese interest) than a hostile, hungry one is.