Belarusian dissident Roman Protasevich praises the country's authoritarian leader on state TV as he faces the potential death penalty

• Dissident blogger Roman Protasevich praised Belarus' authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko on state TV.
• He said he regretted calling on the public to protest Lukashenko and distanced himself from Lukashenko's political opponent.
• The interview came days after Protasevich was pulled off a Ryanair flight and potentially faces the death penalty.

Roman Protasevich, a 26-year-old blogger and Belarusian dissident, appeared on state TV Thursday to praise the country's strongman leader, President Alexander Lukashenko. Protasevich's interview, in which he endorsed the Lukashenko regime's platform, came ten days after Belarusian authorities pulled him off a Ryanair flight that was forced to land in Minsk.

It also comes as Lukashenko suggested that the blogger was responsible for "grave crimes" in Ukraine's Donbass region and could face the death penalty. He is currently being held on charges of terrorism and inciting anti-government riots.

In the interview, Protasevich said he organized "mass unrest" in Belarus to protest Lukashenko's government, which is supported by the Russian government.

"I realised that many things Aleksandr Grigoryevich is criticised for are just attempts to pressure him, and that in many moments he acted like… a man with balls of steel," Protasevich said, according to Matthew Luxmoore, who is RFERL's Moscow correspondent.

He added: "Poland and Lithuania have an interest in supporting the protests in Belarus because it lets them make loud statements with the approval of the collective West."

Protasevich went on to say he regretted calling on Belarus' public to organize and distanced himself from Lukashenko's political opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. She ran against Lukashenko in the country's election last year in place of her husband, Sergei, who was arrested after he announced his campaign.

Protasevich rose to fame when he co-founded the NEXTA Telegram channel, which is the most popular opposition platform in Belarus. A pro-democracy activist since he was a teenager, Protasevich was on a Ryanair flight headed from Athens to Lithuania on May 23 when Lukashenko ordered the plane to land in Minsk, where Protasevich was subsequently seized by authorities.

After the flight was diverted, The New York Times reported, Protasevich told one of the other passengers that he was facing the death penalty for speaking out against Lukashenko.

"Don't do this, they will kill me, I am a refugee," he said, according to a fellow passenger.

He also begged a flight attendant to stop the plane from landing, but the attendant replied that "we have no choice," The Guardian reported.

"He was not screaming, but it was clear that he was very much afraid," another passenger told the AFP. "It looked like if the window had been open, he would have jumped out of it."