Lukashenko's Desperation: How Long can he go on?

'Kalinovski Square' by Jurij Chascewatskij details the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus and the oppressive regime of Alexander Lukashenko

Minsk - Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old critic of Belarus's strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko and the former editor in chief of the Telegram channel Nexta, was arrested in a rather unusual fashion this week - by hijacking a flight he was traveling in.

The flight was traveling from Athens to Vilnius when a Belarusian fighter jet allegedly intercepted the flight and diverted it to Minsk National Airport on grounds that there was a suspicion of explosives on board, despite the fact that Vilnius was actually closer to the flight than Minsk during the diversion and although Vilnius airport authorities clarified that they were not alerted on any such suspicion. Soon after landing, Protasevich and his girlfriend were arrested by the police.

Protasevich is a long-time critic of President Lukashenko. Lukashenko had been facing widespread protests in his country since his elections in August last year, in which he was accused of committing widespread election fraud and illegally claiming 80% of the votes to himself. The elections were declared as not recognized by the EU, UN, the United States, and the majority of the world states. He won every election since 1994 and each of those elections, except the first one, was labeled by international monitors as neither free nor fair.

When protests broke out after the elections last year, Belarusian authorities tried to disable internet access. The Telegram channel Nexta, which Protasevich managed, became one of the only mediums for people to gain information about the protests. The channel reportedly gained over 800,000 new subscribers in a week. Subsequently, Protadevic was accused of organizing mass riots.

A day after the hijack of the Ryanair flight, Belarusian state television released a video showing Protasevich's confession, but his parents and supporters claim that the confession was made under duress and that there were marks on his face and nose suggesting that he was beaten up, bruises of which were evidently covered with makeup. Human Rights groups including Amnesty International have called for his immediate release.

The EU was quick to react with a call for the immediate release, a blockade over Belarusian airspace, sanctions on individuals involved in the highjacking and businesses and economic entities funding the regime, as well as a freeze on ongoing 3 billion investment package negotiations for Belarus until the country turns democratic. If this wasn't enough, the EU leaders further announced on Thursday that they are currently discussing more economic and sector-specific sanctions on this matter. The question is, how much further can Lukashenko go until he has to give up?

Lukashenko is 'turning Belarus into the North Korea of Europe', said his opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The Chairman of Cinema for Peace has been discussing the situation for several years with the first President of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, who dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991 by going independent with Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

Protasevic's testimony released by the Belarusian state television, showing bruises covered by makeup.