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Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

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Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#131

Post by tomp »

slezyr wrote: post #82
erentz wrote: post #40

It’s odd to me that the Ryanair flight yesterday was already closer to its destination of Vilnius than Minsk when it turned around. Ryanair said that the crew had been "notified by Belarus (Air Traffic Control) of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk". So they didn’t have an incident onboard? There were no hijackers claiming to have a bomb? Just ATC telling…

> It’s odd to me that the Ryanair flight yesterday was already closer to its destination of Vilnius than Minsk when it turned around. Closer, but it had the wrong altitude for Vilnius. They were intercepted earlier. See this visualization https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1396482250812841986

Very interesting! Is there a sensible explanation for this? Have they known up-front that the flight is going to be diverted? Or maybe they were radio-ed before, and there was some discussion / negotiation (during which time, they aborted their descent to Vilnius)...

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#132

Post by nzmsv »

kofejnik wrote: post #99
thinkingemote wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the Chinese you can tell when they cannot even refer to, say or admit certain things: e.g. massacres. But they would say "we are not being censored" For China and Russia, etc, it feels as if by mocking the hypocrisy of the West they are naively assuming that there's no such criticism from within the West. I think this is revealing but I might be wrong.

> For the Chinese you can tell when they cannot even refer to, say or admit certain things: e.g. massacres. But they would say "we are not being censored" It is exactly the same in Russia, you may not mention certain historical facts at all, e.g. Germany-USSR cooperation during 1939-1941

That's why there is a Russian language Wikipedia article about said cooperation: https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Договор_о_ненападении_между_... and that article cites a number of print books.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#133

Post by toyg »

input_sh wrote: post #121
jeltz wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There is a lot of armchair whining here. Are people really in favour of an invasion of Belarus?

Why are you talking like there's no middle between not doing anything and a full on invasion? From the top of my head: - Divert EU planes to avoid Belarus. - Prevent Belarus' aeroplanes from flying over the EU. - Increase sanctions towards Belarus officials. etc etc

Yes, and all of them take time to be put into motion. A lot of different parties will have to agree, including immoral profit-driven scum like Ryanair. That's what democracy looks like in practice; it ain't as pretty and orderly as a tyrannical dictatorship, where one guy says something and everyone complies right away.

All of that means it's early to complain about any lack of European reaction. In some areas there has been a strong response already, and it will likely get stronger in the next few weeks.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#134

Post by YarickR2 »

kofejnik wrote: post #99
thinkingemote wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the Chinese you can tell when they cannot even refer to, say or admit certain things: e.g. massacres. But they would say "we are not being censored" For China and Russia, etc, it feels as if by mocking the hypocrisy of the West they are naively assuming that there's no such criticism from within the West. I think this is revealing but I might be wrong.

> For the Chinese you can tell when they cannot even refer to, say or admit certain things: e.g. massacres. But they would say "we are not being censored" It is exactly the same in Russia, you may not mention certain historical facts at all, e.g. Germany-USSR cooperation during 1939-1941

Well, this is fine example of so-called "lie", plain and simple. You may mention it, and often it is being mentioned by all kinds of media. Things that really are frowned upon are highly controversial topics like alleged mass raping by the Red Army in Germany during WW2 . Other than that, no holds are barred, and things are discussed freely; I'd say hot topics are more frequent in Russian media than in the US one ; but clearly hotness and level of controversy is different in two blocs

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#135

Post by ceejayoz »

gostsamo wrote: post #46
thinkingemote wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that people can joke about the west in Russia but are people allowed to make jokes about their own government in Russia and in the associated eastern european states? Is it like China yet? I'm guessing not as there's no visible list of banned words and phrases, but we don't see (in HN) much criticism of Russia, Belarus from there, just attacks on the hypocrisy of the West. Do you see it headed towards China, w…

It is a crime to make caricatures of Vladimir Putin. Someone is downvoting this comment to death, so I'm sharing the story for the brave and curious. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/05...

It's also apparently not advisable to beat him in ice hockey.

https://deadspin.com/vladimir-putin-scores-eight-goals-in-ru...

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#136

Post by morsch »

egao1980 wrote: post #123

On 21st of October 2016 Ukraine did the same to Belavia flight, including fighter jet etc. I haven't heard of any international uproar or calls to ban Ukrainian air companies / avoid airspace.

https://www.rt.com/news/363763-ukraine-belavia-antimaidan-pl...

A pertinent difference is that the plane started out in Ukraine and was compelled to return. Still, this seems quite unusual.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#137

Post by ceejayoz »

nzmsv wrote: post #132
kofejnik wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the Chinese you can tell when they cannot even refer to, say or admit certain things: e.g. massacres. But they would say "we are not being censored" It is exactly the same in Russia, you may not mention certain historical facts at all, e.g. Germany-USSR cooperation during 1939-1941

That's why there is a Russian language Wikipedia article about said cooperation: https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Договор_о_ненападении_между_... and that article cites a number of print books.

To be fair, that's likely neither hosted in Russia nor exclusively edited by Russian residents.

The Chinese Wikipedia has an article on the 1989 Tienanmen Square massacre, for example. I would assume it's not available in China. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B%E4%BA%8B%E4...

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#138

Post by toyg »

gostsamo wrote: post #83
ols wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU doesn’t have a joint foregin policy. Foregin relations is still an intergovernmental matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Representative_of_the_Uni...

Yeah, the HR role has been systematically sabotaged since its inception, by way of appointing weaker and weaker nominees and starving it of any real power. At the moment it's a glorified PR position, with no decisional power whatsoever. Javier Solana effectively lost the battle for being the EU "foreign minister" and since then it's all been about individual member states.

Chances are this will not change until there is a serious rethinking of the European role in NATO. As long as the big decisions are taken there, there is no real role for an EU "ministry" beyond trade interests.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#139

Post by vbezhenar »

thinkingemote wrote: post #31
golergka wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European diplomats being "strongly concerned" have long become a running joke here in Russia: https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned I sincerely hope that this statement finally gets backed up by some decisive action that can put real pressure on these dictators, but I don't get my hopes up.

I know that people can joke about the west in Russia but are people allowed to make jokes about their own government in Russia and in the associated eastern european states? Is it like China yet? I'm guessing not as there's no visible list of banned words and phrases, but we don't see (in HN) much criticism of Russia, Belarus from there, just attacks on the hypocrisy of the West. Do you see it headed towards China, w…

> I know that people can joke about the west in Russia but are people allowed to make jokes about their own government in Russia and in the associated eastern european states? Is it like China yet?

Yes, plenty of people inside those countries do not like regime and openly discuss it on public internet websites. I don't know about China situation so I can't make a direct comparison. If you're very popular blogger and you'll make direct insults to Putin (or any other person with high position), you might be fined or even jailed, there are laws prohibiting insults against people, but those cases are very rare. And nobody hunts ordinary people.

> I'm guessing not as there's no visible list of banned words and phrases, but we don't see (in HN) much criticism of Russia, Belarus from there, just attacks on the hypocrisy of the West.

Huh? HN is pretty much against Russia, Belarus, etc. Those who try to defend usually are heavily downvoted and labeled as kremlin bots.

Anyway people usually are gathered with similar viewpoints. Any outsiders are expelled quickly. I know web forums, where most of people are holding pro-Russian viewpoint and I know web forums, where most of people are holding pro-West viewpoint. But I know no webforum with balanced opinion. I think that for US people Republicans vs Democrats might be a close analogy.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#140

Post by gostsamo »

ols wrote: post #125
gostsamo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a random result when you search for Borrell in Moscow. Look for his behavior in Turkey if you want some more examples of how random this guy is while he is considered an EU representative. His position requires for him to coordinate responses of the 27, but he is just wandering around wasting time and resources. As far as the EU is an economic powerhouse, letting dictators do whatever they want while allowed…

Some EU member states (Hungary, Poland) are very much against handing over any diplomatic power to the High Representative. Hungarian government is basically acting as a Putin proxy here and Polish ruling party feeds on constant conflict.

I agree. At the same time Borrell has enough independence to make him a distinct face. He decides where he goals, what to say, how to behave when the EU is being mocked. Even if you say that he is just a glorified PR, he is an awful PR.

It looks that I'm picking on him, but he is just a very good example. I can talk a lot about others, but this thread is politicized enough already.

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