“Personally, I was not expecting this kind of event to happen in 2021,” said Ciucă, who was speaking in the Romanian capital Bucharest during the Atlantic-Black Sea Security Forum, organised by the Aspen Institute Romania in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Ciucă added, however, that the hijacking should not remain without sanctions.
“It is an attack on our way of life, on democracy,” he said.
In Russia’s immediate neighbourhood, the downing of the plane was less unexpected, and defence ministry officials were quick to point the finger at the Kremlin.
“In Kyiv, [the incident] did not come as a surprise,” said Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, adding: “Belarus has already been annexed by Russia, by hybrid measures, just as happened in Crimea.”
THE FIGHT CONTINUES: New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was feeling pretty good about the prospects for her bill that would remove serious, non-military crimes from the authority commanders and instead place them under the jurisdiction of professional military criminal prosecutors.
State-sponsored air piracy: Belarus dictator tests the international community
Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka sparked international uproar on May 23 by forcing an EU airliner to land in Minsk and detaining a dissident Belarusian journalist among the plane s passengers. (Andrei Stasevich/BelTA/TASS via REUTERS)
European leaders agreed to a series of sanctions measures against Belarus on May 24, the day after the East European nation sparked uproar by forcing an EU passenger jet to land in Minsk and abducting a high-profile dissident passenger. The rapid EU decision to press forward with a new round of sanctions underscored widespread alarm over Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s actions and the challenge they pose to the rules-based international order.