RIA Novosti accused Bild of lying about Russia’s involvement in the delivery of refugees to Belarus. But what RIA is indignant with is not in Bild

In fact, in the article by Nikolaus Harbusch and Julian Röpke, “Putin and Erdogan’s Smuggling Plan,” published in the German tabloid imageThere is no “proof” that Kornilov makes fun of. Speaking about the participation of Aeroflot in the delivery of refugees from the Middle East to Belarus, the authors of the article refer to a source in the German police. Companion image Heiko Teggats is not an official representative of the department, but only the leader of the police trade union, but, apparently, he is quite knowledgeable. Harbush and Röpke cite this statement:

– Aeroflot and Turkish Airlines play important roles in the transportation of illegal immigrants.

The flight schedule in the article by Harbush and Repke serves as proof of another thesis, namely that the Belarusian state airline Belavia is involved in the transportation of illegal immigrants: the journalists drew attention to the fact that 57 flights a week arrive at the Minsk airport from the Middle East, although before the pandemic, when for objective reasons there were much more tourists and business travelers, there were only 17 such flights. Most of these flights are operated by Belavia, but there is also a daily Damascus-Minsk flight by the Syrian airline Cham Wings, owned by Bashar al-Assad’s cousin. At the same time, it is impossible to buy tickets for these flights on the websites of Belavia and Cham Wings airlines for any date; they are clearly booked for some special transportation. If the absence of tickets Minsk – Antalya can still be explained by the charter nature of the flight, where all the seats were bought by travel agencies, then it can hardly be assumed that Belarusians en masse rushed to rest in Syria.

As for the participation of Turkish Airlines in this operation, the correspondent image Clara-Marie Becker saw migrants boarding a plane to Minsk at the Istanbul airport. She talks about it this way:

– I am with a colleague at the Istanbul airport. We are here to see refugees flying to Minsk and from there through Poland to Germany. Some with small children. All of them are dressed in winter jackets, their backpacks are packed to overflowing. Many have frightened faces because they know that a dangerous path lies ahead.