The population voted for the opposition candidate, took to the streets when the results were rigged, but had no leaders willing to escalate the confrontation when the state had its pants down. The dictator has buckled his pants and has gradually reduced the opposition to posting memes in Telegram chats. And even this activity is no longer safe.
Are we talking about military leaders who support the current dictator? What could the leaders of the opposition have done to escalate the confrontation further?
This sort of coexistence has been attempted and patently failed.
It's their population, not ours. An important distinction.
We (rest of the world, but particularly Europe) need to get stricter.
Honestly, I wish the next step would be for NATO to step in and restore the country to a legitimate government. Between this, Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine, China, Israel, the world has been way too conivent with the destruction of democracy.
What a country wants is not in general what those in power want.
Also I think that the more sanctions are put from West to Belarus, the closer it gets to become another Russia state. I'm not sure if that's the outcome West wants to see.
This is plain and simple hijacking of an international flight and not “within bounds” at all. Laws are to be followed in principle, not just technical merit, these are not computer games.
About half of Belarus's trade is with Russia. All this would accomplish is making it 90%+ and deepen ties with Russia. Might as well suggest having Russia annex Belarus as a response to the situation.