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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

#151

Post by golergka »

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?

That's a tough question. For example, when I was active in TikTok (I grew tired of it pretty fast), I've made a lot of very critical videos that had a lot of views. In one of them, that got almost 100k views, I explicitly said that Putin and his gang are usurping power, and while the current Russian laws say that it's punishable up to 20 years in prison, I think that they deserve the death penalty. I did not get in any trouble for that. But many others from Russian Libertarian Party (which I'm a member of) have, even though they've said much less. May be they had a wider reach, or may be it's just random, I don't know. And I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of years later I'll get 5 years of prison for these TikToks.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#152

Post by newsbinator »

raverbashing wrote: post #91
tacker2000 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a EU citizen, this is quite hilarious. The EU is so toothless it hurts.

Good, so you're in favour of an EU army? Armed invasion of Bielorussia to kidnap the guy back? The geopolitical armchair experts complain more about responses than actually giving realistic suggestions to give. (Sure, we can cut Belarus out, and see thousands of "Russian tourists" go for a holiday there right after - maybe that would be a good response?). And yes, you won't see me defending Borrell.

Friendly note: people from the country of Belarus call themselves "Belarusians" (pronounced like "bela-roo-sians", not like "bela-russians"), and take offence at the term "Bielorussia".

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#153

Post by golergka »

ceejayoz wrote: post #39
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…

How will you know if the answer to this is honest or censored, though?

You can google my username, and get my social network accounts for the last 20 years, and a lot of details me and even my family, wikipedia article about my grandfather and his history in USSR, and so on. And then ask yourself if state propaganda would go to such trouble for a couple of comments. It's not doxing, I wouldn't use it if I wasn't completely okay with that.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#154

Post by golergka »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #57
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.

What is the probability of this account being owned by Russian government? I would say 99% and you’re just perpetuating the same propaganda.

Click on my username and go through my latest comments. If I'm a Russian propaganda troll, I must be a really elaborate one.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#155

Post by papito »

maratc wrote: post #8

This will likely have no consequences to the regime in Belarus, while increasing costs to these Baltic airlines. A policy that might achieve something would be if the Baltic states, together with Poland and Ukraine, would close their airspace to Belavia planes, until the detained passenger is delivered to his destination in Vilnius. This will increase costs to Belarusian airlines, which would be a problem to the regi…

What will increase the costs for the regime is putting sanctions on potash sales, which is the primary source of foreign currency there. Of course, Russia would just make up for it, but they had a hand in this as well, so attach a dollar value to this geopolitical hooliganism.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#156

Post by bmmayer1 »

mikro2nd wrote: post #104
mrweasel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This will likely have no consequences to the regime in Belarus That's the problem with sanctions, at some point you run of of things to take away. From then on your target can pretty much do what ever they want, knowing that things can't really get any worse.

Not so. Sanctions can be devastatingly effective applied by a significant majority of the world over a length of time. Sanctions were the instrument that brought an end to the Apartheid regime in South Africa: sanctions, having brought the South African economy to its knees, were a key factor in forcing the ruling regime to the negotiating table. Yes, in some fairytale world the ruling National Party could have conti…

I know a little about this; it's pretty controversial, historically, whether Western sanctions, vs. decades of civil war and violent insurrection (often backed by subvert support from the Kremlin with the CIA playing defense) in SA and neighboring states were the catalyst. There are plenty of historians / economists who would argue that sanctions made things worse for the people of South Africa (much the same is said today about sanctions against Iran). In any event, that sanctions where "the" instrument that brought an end to apartheid should not be stated as if it were a universally accepted fact.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#157

Post by proxysna »

varjag wrote: post #30
proxysna wrote: post #16

This affects me directly since i am working outside of Belarus now and rely on air travel to visit my family, still this feels like the only reasonable answer to KGB messing with airlines. I am expecting that most planes to Belarus, from EU are going to be cancelled and people will have to reroute their travel through Moscow. In general it is terrifying how far my country went down the path of turning into another Tu…

I'm in the same spot. When I was leaving the country after then-"election" in 2006, I had to wait until the engineer I was handing the project over to finished his 30-day prison sentence. This year even my ever optimistic friends who were never intent to move have been sent packing. The hijacking makes things even worse for the unwillingly growing Belarusian diaspora, but there should not be mucking around. I advocat…

My close circle of friends, mostly moved to nearby countries Estonia, Ukraine, Poland and even Russia. One family has returned because they got homesick and being an immigrant is generally hard. But no one is planning to stay in Belarus, right now you can't be sure that tommorow you won't become a criminal without any guilt of your own and it is not getting any better.

And anything that hurts regime is worth it, no matter how anemic it might seem, in the long run it is all worth it.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#158

Post by hadrien01 »

newsbinator wrote: post #152
raverbashing wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, so you're in favour of an EU army? Armed invasion of Bielorussia to kidnap the guy back? The geopolitical armchair experts complain more about responses than actually giving realistic suggestions to give. (Sure, we can cut Belarus out, and see thousands of "Russian tourists" go for a holiday there right after - maybe that would be a good response?). And yes, you won't see me defending Borrell.

Friendly note: people from the country of Belarus call themselves "Belarusians" (pronounced like "bela-roo-sians", not like "bela-russians"), and take offence at the term "Bielorussia".

This might be a simple mistranslation; in many Romance languages, Belarus is called 'Bielorussia'.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#159

Post by [deleted] »

toyg wrote: post #101
V-2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"in both cases a state pressure was applied to extract an undesirable to the regime citizen from a plane" As I explained - in case of Snowden they would only have prevented him from getting to South America. They wouldn't have extracted him from the plane. If Snowden was on board, he'd simply be flown back to Russia - back to square one. An analogy in this case would be Belarus merely prohibiting the RyanAir flight f…

> in case of Snowden they would only have prevented him from getting to South America. And you know this how, were you working for the Austrian government at the time, and were you a member of the team who searched the plane? Chances are that they would have at minimum detained him and allowed the US to start extradition proceedings. Whether they would have eventually extradited him, is not certain; but they would no…

[deleted]

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#160

Post by [deleted] »

wp381640 wrote: post #93
cookguyruffles wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding an extra 50 yards to any single Ryanair flight would likely bankrupt the company

I doubt that - pre-COVID they were one of the most profitable airlines in the world They’re just ruthless in cost cutting to get those profits

[deleted]
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