Belarus president calls backlash against plane incident a ‘planned provocation’

European countries begin to block flights from Minsk, with flight to Barcelona turned around at Polish border

Alexander Lukashenko has made his first public remarks defending his grounding of a Ryanair flight last week, accusing the west of launching a hybrid modern war" against Minsk and calling the backlash over the incident a planned provocation".

Addressing a session of parliament, Lukashenko also appeared to suggest the plane could have been shot down because it was flying over a nuclear power plant when it was diverted by the Belarusian government, which appeared to have concocted a bomb threat and scrambled a Mig-29 to ensure the plane landed.