26-year-old detained journalist has lifelong fight against Belarus regime

KYIV, Ukraine — Raman Pratasevich has been part of the Belarus political opposition for over a decade and has long feared the authorities would try to abduct him, even though he was living abroad. The 26-year-old dissident journalist couldn’t imagine, however, just how far they would go.

Pratasevich, who ran a channel on a messaging app used to organize demonstrations against the iron-fisted rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, left his homeland in 2019 to try to escape the reach of the Belarusian KGB and ended up in Lithuania. He was charged in absentia for inciting riots, which carries a sentence of 15 years in prison. As he was returning Sunday to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, from Greece with his girlfriend aboard a Ryanair jet, Belarusian flight controllers told the crew to divert to Minsk, citing a bomb threat. Lukashenko scrambled a fighter jet to escort the plane.