On the social network “Facebook,” he noted that the Minister of Transport, Juras Taminskas, missing attention to security from the former leadership, appoints a person who worked as vice president of Gediminas Žiemelis’ “Avia Solutions Group,” responsible for sales in the Russian and CIS markets.
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“Here the Belarusian opposition publication “Zerkalo” recorded his comments on the ICAO report regarding the forced landing of the “Ryanair” flight to Vilnius in Minsk, which are close to the official defensive position of Belarus.
The new LTOU board member responsible for strategic aviation planning provided an interpretation of Belarus’ air piracy against the plane flying to Vilnius, which fundamentally contradicts the official position of the European Union (EU), ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) Assembly, and Lithuania itself on this issue,” wrote M. Lingė.
Here is how, according to M. Lingė, O. Laneckis evaluates the same report differently:
“ICAO Council: condemned the Belarusian Government for an act of unlawful interference, confirmed that the order to land the plane was given by high-ranking Belarusian officials.
O. Laneckis: “The report is generally favorable to the Belarusian side,” it is “essentially neutral towards the Belarusian authorities.”
EU (Josep Borrell, Adina Vălean): it was a “hijacking of a civilian aircraft,” carried out solely to arrest an opposition journalist – an obvious violation of international air law.
O. Laneckis: “This report refutes the claims made by the EU or the US – about military coercion to land or hijacking of the plane. Formally, the Belarusian authorities did everything absolutely correctly, and any investigation would have shown this, and this is exactly what we see.”
The ICAO Council formally condemned Belarus, and this condemnation was later confirmed by the entire ICAO Assembly by adopting a resolution.
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Meanwhile, O. Laneckis: “I think the next step for Belarus is to go to court and demand the removal of all bans, demanding compensation.”
The only country in the ICAO Council that refused to recognize Belarus’ responsibility was Russia. O. Laneckis basically echoed Russia’s position in his assessments,” wrote M. Lingė.
The member of parliament also emphasized that O. Laneckis is regularly invited as an expert by Russian business media (RBC, “Kommersant,” BFM.ru) and comments on Russian domestic aviation matters. As M. Lingė stated, in several of them he consistently presented the Russian aviation sector as successfully adapting to sanctions.
“Minister Taminskas’ responsibility in this matter is direct – the board is appointed and dismissed by the minister himself. In spring, without any rational arguments, he dismissed the former board, cynically explaining that there was a ‘lack of drive,’ and the current choice to entrust the company’s strategy formation to O. Laneckis, whose company advised Belarusian authorities on attracting low-cost airlines – to put it mildly, looks like a misunderstanding,” emphasized M. Lingė.
He raised the question of whether really, out of 67 candidates, there was no one else with a better background?
For a comment, 15min contacted the Ministry of Transport. Upon receiving it, we will update the text.
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