State-Sponsored Hijacking & International Responses: The Political Challenge of the RyanAir Incident

State-Sponsored Hijacking and International Responses: The Political Challenge of the RyanAir Incident The New York-Russia Public Policy Series is co-hosted by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and the New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. The forced landing of a Ryanair flight by Belarusian authorities and coerced detention of dissent journalist Roman Protasevich has spotlighted the practice of transnational repression: the targeting of political exiles and opposition figures abroad by authoritarians and their security services. President Lukashenko’s brash act has been referred to as a “state-sponsored” hijack and has prompted the EU to terminate flights by Belarsus’s national carrier, avoid the use of Belarusian airspace, and consider adding more sectoral and individual sanctions. At the same time, Russian Present Vladimir Putin has strongly supported Lukashenko and Western condemnation appears to be further driving Minsk into the political embrace of Moscow. Our expert panel of professionals from journalism, academia, and the human rights community will discuss why Protasevich was targeted, why these acts of transnational repression are growing more common, and what implications the Ryanair incident will have for US and EU relations with Belarus and Moscow. This event is supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. SPEAKERS Hanna Liubakova, freelance journalist and researcher; Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council Tatyana Margolin, Regional Director of the Open Society Foundations Eurasia Program Nate Schenkkan, Director of Research Strategy at Freedom House Yuval Weber, Bren Chair of Russian Military and Political Strategy at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare, Marine Corps University; Research Assistant Professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service Moderated by: Alexander Cooley, Director of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University Joshua Tucker, Director of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, New York University