Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s regime on Monday pardoned dissident Roman Protasevich just days after he was sentenced to eight years and nearly two years since his arrest in a particularly fucked up incident which saw Belarusian fighter jets force a RyanAir flight from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk so Protasevich could be dragged off to jail, the BBC reports.
Though “free,” Protasevich is unlikely to ever be let out of Belarus and he “thanked” the regime in a video released by state media agency Belta following the pardon and commutation of the brutal sentence. “I am incredibly grateful to the country and of course, to the president personally for such a decision,” said Protasevich in the video, adding he would head to “a quiet place in the countryside for a couple of days… in order to take a breather and start to move forward.”