Foreign planes massively avoid Belarusian airspace, only Russia aircraft fly over Belarus

After European Union airlines have been told to avoid flights over the airspace of Belarus, planes have virtually stopped flying over that country.

This is seen from data provided by Flightradar24, a global flight tracking service.

From time to time, planes of Russia and those countries that have not yet decided to halt flights over Belarus are seen in Belarusian airspace.

As of the morning of May 25, nine airlines suspended flights over the territory of Belarus: Air France (France), Finnair (Finland), SAS (Sweden), Avia Solutions (Cyprus), LOT (Poland), WizzAir (Hungary), AirBaltic (Latvia), KLM (the Netherlands), and Lufthansa (Germany).

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Forced landing of Ryanair flight in Minsk: Details

• On May 23, 2021, Belarus scrambled a MiG-29 fighter jet to forcedly land a Ryanair plane in Minsk. The plane was heading from Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, Lithuania. Co-founder of Telegram's opposition channel NEXTA, Roman Protasevich, was on board the plane.
• The plane was diverted to Minsk at the command of Belarusian air traffic controllers over a possible bomb threat, despite the fact that the distance to Vilnius was much shorter. After the plane landed, Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend were detained. Protasevich faces the death penalty in Belarus.
• The circumstances of the forced landing of the Ryanair airline in Minsk will be investigated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
• In turn, Ryanair said in a comment on the incident that the Belarusian side had received a message about a security-related threat on board the airliner. At the same time, the company did not mention that its plane had been accompanied by a fighter jet and that after the forced landing, journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend had been removed from the flight.
• A number of European countries announced the possible introduction of sanctions against Belarus for the incident. In addition, some airlines immediately stopped using Belarussian airspace.
• Ukraine will also terminate flights with Belarus and redirect all flights around that country's airspace. Lithuania and the United Kingdom have already banned arrivals of planes traveling through that country.