Belarus opposition leader says Lukashenko’s government ‘frightened’

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (AP)

Exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has said the arrest of a dissident journalist after a Ryanair plane was diverted to Minsk was a panicked miscalculation by the country’s authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko.

She said in an interview: “It was really a mistake. The regime never crossed this red line before, of interfering in a European area.