Ukraine closes its airspace to aircraft from Belarus.

This was reported on the government’s website. The ban will come into force on May 29.

Earlier, Ukraine was one of the first countries to ban Belarusian airlines from using its airports, after which other countries began adopting similar decisions. This was a reaction to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk and the arrest of an opposition blogger.

Ukraine’s initiative is expected to be supported by the EU Council — to ban Belarusian airlines from using EU airspace, both for transit and for flights to EU airports.

As a reminder, on May 23 the Belarusian authorities scrambled a MiG-29 fighter jet to force a Ryanair Boeing Co. 737-800 aircraft to land. On board was 26-year-old Belarusian opposition journalist Roman Protasevich, who had been covering protests in Belarus on the NEXTA Telegram channel. The formal reason given for the landing was an alleged bomb threat.

The EU described this incident as an act of piracy and state-sponsored hijacking.