‘I’m insanely thankful to the president’: how a Belarus dissident became an apologist for the regime

Activist Raman Pratasevich, part of the Belarus political opposition for over a decade, is detained by police in Minsk in 2017. Photograph: AP

Two years ago, Raman Pratasevich, a young Belarusian dissident blogger, was white-knuckled, begging a Ryanair flight crew not to make an emergency landing at Minsk airport.

He said: “Don’t do this, they will kill me, I am a refugee,” according to a fellow passenger. The plane, escorted by a Belarusian Mig-29 fighter jet sent to force it down, landed anyway. Pratasevich was promptly arrested.