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| - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday ordered the government to stop direct flights in and out of Belarus after it provoked an outcry by forcing an airliner to land so it could arrest an opposition activist. "The president instructed the government to work out a decision on the termination of direct flights between Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus," the presidency said in a statement. Ukrainian planes would not fly through Belarus airspace, the statement added. Prime Minister Denys Shmygal announced an extraordinary government meeting to be held on Tuesday to discuss the order. The Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, carrying dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, was diverted while in Belarusian airspace on Sunday over a supposed bomb threat. Accompanied by a Belarusian fighter jet on the orders of strongman Alexander Lukashenko, the plane landed in the capital Minsk where Protasevich, a 26-year-old who had been living in Lithuania, was arrested along with his Russian girlfriend. The unprecedented move sparked an international outcry, with Western leaders accusing Belarusian authorities of essentially hijacking a European plane. Belarusian airline Belavia is currently the only carrier operating flights between Kiev and Minsk. The ban will particularly affect passengers travelling between Ukraine and Russia who often used Minsk to transfer, after direct flights between the countries stopped in 2015. Kiev at the time banned four Russian airlines flying to Ukraine's Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. In a tit-for-tat move, Russia closed its airspace to all Ukrainian airlines, leading Kiev to ban all Russian airlines. In July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a Russian-made BUK missile over rebel-held territory in the east of Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. ant-osh/jbr/kjl
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