Dispatchers in Minsk Informed the Pilots about the Mining of the Ryanair Plane 24 Minutes Earlier Than They Received the "Letter"

Inconsistencies in the “terrorist” version of the Belarusian authorities.

On May 26, during his speech, Lukashenka commented on the emergency landing in Minsk of a Ryanair airline, on board which was the former editor-in-chief of the Nexta Telegram channel Raman Pratasevich. Lukashenka said that the message about the mining of the side was received by “Athens, Minsk, and Vilnius at the same time.” After the Belarusian air traffic controllers passed the information about the bomb allegedly received from the special services to the Ryanair pilots, it was decided to land the plane in Minsk. To escort the board, a MiG-29 fighter of the Belarusian Air Force was raised.

The Dossier Center, together with The Daily Beast and Der Spiegel, managed to obtain and analyze a copy of an email sent by a “Hamas representative” to the Minsk airport. It follows from it that the Belarusian air traffic controllers informed the Ryanair pilots about the mining of the plane 27 minutes earlier than they received the message about the bomb.

On May 23, at 12:25 pm Belarusian time, the administration of Lithuanian Airports received a letter with the threat of a bomb explosion on board flight FR4978 by e-mail, sent from the address ahmed_yurlanov1988@protonmail.com. It reported the following: “We, the Hamas soldiers, demand that Israel ceases fire in the Gaza Strip. We demand that the EU renounces its support for Israel in this war. It is known that the participants of the Delphic Economic Forum are returning home on May 23 on flight FR4978. This plane has a bomb. If you do not fulfill our demands, the bomb will explode on May 23 over Vilnius. Allahu Akbar."

At 12:30, the plane entered the airspace of Belarus. As follows from the transcript of the dispatchers' negotiations with the Ryanair pilots, at the same moment, the Belarusian side informed the crew about the alleged explosion threat. At 12:33 pm, the controller informed the pilot that a letter with a message about the bomb had been sent to several airports at once. However, as the Dossier Center found out, at that time, only Lithuanian Airports received a letter from the “terrorists.” The Greek Civil Aviation Authority said it had not received a bomb threat letter at the Athens airport.

At 12:47, the plane changed course and flew towards Minsk. The official statement of the Aviation Directorate of the Ministry of Transport of Belarus did not disclose details of the time of receipt of the e-mail, however, Dossier found out that a copy of the letter from the user Ahmed Yurlanov came to the e-mail of the National Airport of Minsk (info@airport.by) at 12:57 pm Belarusian time - that is, almost half an hour after the transmission of the message about the possible mining of the side.

There are many contradictions in the version of the Belarusian authorities. Hamas has officially denied its involvement in sending the letter and said it does not resort to such methods. The demand to stop supporting the Israeli side could hardly have been fulfilled in less than an hour - that was how long the plane had to fly to Vilnius. And, in Gaza, at that moment, a ceasefire was already declared. The reality of the figure of Akhmed Urlanov also raises questions. However, the inconsistency over time is perhaps the most obvious. How did the Belarusian special services find out about the mining of the plane before receiving the letter about the bomb? How did they know that the message was sent to several more airports?

In addition, during his speech, Lukashenka said that the message was sent from Switzerland. Most likely, this indicates his technical illiteracy or a desire to mislead the public.

The email was sent from Protonmail, a secure email service registered in Switzerland. These messages contain a header that indicates the IP address of the Protonmail server (185.70.40.138). For example, if you send an email from your Protonmail account to Gmail (see photo 1), then the IP address indicated in the header of this letter will match the address of the Protonmail server in Switzerland (see photo 2). Therefore, in the case of a message sent from the address ahmed_yurlanov1988@protonmail.com, the exact location of the user cannot be determined.

Former editor-in-chief of the Nexta Telegram channel Raman Pratasevich, who was detained after the plane landed in Minsk, is accused of organizing riots, a gross violation of public order, and inciting social hatred. Pratasevich was included in the list of persons who may be involved in terrorist activities, but, so far this charge, has not been officially brought against him. Together with Pratasevich, his girlfriend, a citizen of Russia Sophia Sapega, was detained. According to the source of Novaya Gazeta, she is accused of organizing mass riots accompanied by violence and organizing group actions associated with clear disobedience to the demands of the authorities. Pratasevich and Sapega can face up to 15 years in prison.