MINSK. May 28 (Interfax) - Minsk is hoping for Moscow's support amid mounting western pressure, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko told his Russian counterpart Mikhail Mishustin in Minsk on Thursday.
"I have to say that the events of the past few days attest to the increased, absolutely unfair pressure by Western countries on Belarus, which seems to be escalating. In this situation we are counting on the support of our closest ally, the Russian Federation," Golovchenko said.
He recalled the incident on board the Ryanair aircraft and the case of a Minsk-Barcelona flight on Wednesday. "As our plane was ascending, information was received that France had closed airspace in breach of all air navigation rules and regulations. The plane had to return to the Minsk airport," Golovchenko said.
"What is particularly outrageous is the hypocrisy when a detained Belarusian citizen, whose biography has two notable pages - participation in hostilities alongside the notorious Azov battalion in eastern Ukraine and administering an extremist Telegram-channel for a fee - is declared a hero by EU officials. At the same time, there was no mention of the truly heroic act, literally days before that, by two Belarusian pilots who paid with their own lives to deflect a Yak-130 aircraft from residential buildings, from the city center," Golovchenko said.