Bloomberg: EU May Stop All Transit Through Belarus

. How the West will react to the hijacking by the Lukashenka regime.

The U.S., the EU, Britain and Canada imposed sanctions against members of the Belarusian authorities after the large-scale protests in Belarus last year. They affected nearly 90 Belarusian officials, including Lukashenka, reports the BBC.

"By coercion, the Belarusian authorities have jeopardized the safety of passengers and crew," Josep Borrel, head of European diplomacy, said on Monday.

According to Bloomberg, Monday's EU summit in Brussels will discuss possible sanctions, which may include sanctions against individuals and legal entities, suspension of all flights of the EU airlines over Belarus and a ban for Belavia to land at European airports.

Moreover, all transit, including ground transportation, may be suspended. These steps will complement the package of sanctions that Brussels was developing before the incident in the sky. It was planned for introduction next month.

Bob Menendez, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, advocated an early ban on flights to Belarus.

Menendez and the heads of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees of seven European countries, including Lithuania and Britain, issued a joint statement, calling the forced landing of the plane in Minsk an act of piracy.

The authors of the statement called to ban all flights over Belarus, including those to and from the country, as well as appealed to the NATO and EU countries with a proposal to impose additional sanctions. Blinken demanded to fully investigate the Belarusian authorities, which, according to him, threatened the lives of passengers, including the U.S. citizens.

Latvian airline airBaltic does not fly over Belarus anymore. Latvian Transport Minister Tālis Linkaits announced it.

So far, the airspace over Belarus remains regular; some carriers have started flying over the republic, as the Belaeronavigatsia state company informed Interfax.

The U.S. Secretary of State advocated holding a meeting of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as soon as possible.