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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

#171

Post by pydry »

_0w8t wrote: post #107
enriquto wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recent incident is painted in exactly the same light by Belarus authorities. They say that the plane was diverted due to a terrorist threat. All passengers were safely evacuated, and once the threat was cleared, they were allowed to continue their trip. During their time in Belarusian soil, one passenger was detained, for completely unrelated reasons. Of course Belarusian police could not do otherwise than detain…

There is an important difference. The Bolivian plane was warned sufficiently in advance and had enough fuel to flight back to Russia at that point. The Ryanair flight was forced to land with a military jet leaving the pilots no choice but to comply. But I agree that what Western Europe did to Bolivian flight backfires now badly.

It's not like Morales told why he was being barred entry to four different countries' air spaces.

In both cases the pilot was lied to to capture a dissident and in neither case were the passengers in danger.

Lukashenko's propaganda will get a boost from this. Indeed, it's possibly what emboldened him to try it, safe in the knowledge that Europe and the US could only condemn it hypocritically.

The West loses moral authority when it pulls this shit - not only in their own countries but in dictatorships rhey are trying to sway.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#172

Post by morelisp »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #167
morelisp wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expanding the sanctions to affect the entire country / citizenry has the side-effect of pushing populism there even closer to Russia, materially and emotionally, without having much effect on the actual bad actors beyond what the current sanctions do. Traditionally a next step would be political, then material, support for an organized internal opposition, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious one in this case.

Economic sanctions can be aimed at Belarusian elites and state enterprises: ban on direct export to Belarus of luxury goods, advanced technology, ban on certain imports etc. At the same time freedom of movement with transit routes via Russia or Ukraine should be encouraged, to support low-volume trade and grey market. The bigger is shadow economy and the less concentrated is private sector, the more difficult is it f…

> Economic sanctions can be aimed at Belarusian elites and state enterprises

Yes, this is already happening since last year, and was already scheduled to be expanded for a fourth time in June. I assume this clinches that, and probably more.

But the fact nobody seems to know there's been sanctions since last year suggests my other point - they're woefully ineffective as long as they can get other support.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#173

Post by vimy »

vbezhenar wrote: post #145
gostsamo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Pikabu is one of the most popular Russian websites (something like Reddit). Here's search results of Putin caricatures: https://pikabu.ru/tag/%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D... It might be a crime, but it's not enforced enough, obviously.

The real reason for that law is probably to use it as a tool against dissidents.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#174

Post by newaccount2021 »

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…

not like America...here all of our colleges and workplaces encourage intellectual diversity and expression /s

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#175

Post by morelisp »

Touche wrote: post #168
morelisp wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expanding the sanctions to affect the entire country / citizenry has the side-effect of pushing populism there even closer to Russia, materially and emotionally, without having much effect on the actual bad actors beyond what the current sanctions do. Traditionally a next step would be political, then material, support for an organized internal opposition, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious one in this case.

Sanctions are almost always too weak. Any sanction that the government can withstand is too weak and will have the affect you describe. A strong sanction that says "release the prisoner immediately" will be short and not affect citizens long enough to create such a sentiment.

What kind of sanction do you have in mind?

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#176

Post by maratc »

egao1980 wrote: post #126
sneak wrote: post #14

And, yet, we didn’t do this to Austria (or any of the other countries in Europe that cancelled use of the airspace) when the plane suspected to be carrying Snowden (but wasn’t, and was actually carrying a head of state) was forced down in Vienna based on a phone call from the US, to be swatted upon landing. Only the “bad guys” are terrorists when they do this. The double standard here in the west is astounding. The p…

In 2016 Ukraine downed Belorussian plane using fighter jet threats. Nobody cared. https://www.refworld.org/docid/58407f0a4.html

All the Belarusian authorities need to do is to send the detained person on the next flight to Vilnius, as Ukrainian authorities have done, and this incident will be over, too.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#177

Post by pydry »

VortexDream wrote: post #20
sneak wrote: post #14

And, yet, we didn’t do this to Austria (or any of the other countries in Europe that cancelled use of the airspace) when the plane suspected to be carrying Snowden (but wasn’t, and was actually carrying a head of state) was forced down in Vienna based on a phone call from the US, to be swatted upon landing. Only the “bad guys” are terrorists when they do this. The double standard here in the west is astounding. The p…

Yes. Because EU countries sent fighter jets and claimed a fake bomb threat to forcibly take control of the plane. Get out of here with that bullshit.

Countries that refuse access to their airspace will generally send fighter jets if you violate it.

The implicit threat of something going badly wrong if they did not land was still there.

And, in both cases it was a dissident committing acts of public service they were after. It was NOT a terrorist.

Even if you manage to convince yourself that the two actions were in no way equivalent that's not how it will play in Belarus. Lukashenko knows that downing Morales plane gives him extra moral authority among his people ("this is standard even the US does it") which is probably why he risked it.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#178

Post by toyg »

V-2 wrote: post #162
toyg wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You seem to have started writing your reply before (or instead of) reading my commment in full. My point was that if Snowden actually was there, they wouldn't land in Austria to begin with. Unlike the RyanAir flight, the plane wasn't forcefully grounded (under a false pretense). It just wasn't let through any further, but returning was still an option.

Because of the constraints on fuel, there was no realistic alternative to going down. And again, once that happened, the fact the Austrian government sent a search party says it all, no matter how hard you want to spin it.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#179

Post by jeroenhd »

intricatedetail wrote: post #54

Nothing material is going happen as Germany needs that gas pipe. It's obvious from the news that this hijack was done together with Russia.

As much as I despise the Russian regime, the American sabotage of that project aren't much better. Power to Germany if they decide to choose which party they hand control to. At least this way the American influences are limited because of competition in the energy space. With the US desperately clinging to remain their control over the European energy market, Russia's attempts to take their place and Germany's nonsensical denouncement of nuclear energy, the entire project is a cesspool of power struggles and corruption.

I don't find Russian involvement very believable. Belarus don't need Russia to force a plane to land, they can do their own state-funded terrorism like any dictatorship.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#180

Post by ghostwriter »

relativ575 wrote: post #147
ghostwriter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm only pointing out these two incidents aren't quite in the same category. they are the same in motives and principles - in both cases a state pressure was applied to extract an undesirable to the regime citizen from a plane. Focusing on technicalities of the act doesn't resolve the issue with the nature of the act - the corrupt state acting as a bully to coerce its rightful citizen into submittance, with all ava…

Look, ignoring moral standing, every countries have fugitives they want to capture. Talking about motive is meaningless. How that being carried out is important. Morales' entourage weren't in danger. They could have chosen to land in Vienna to send a message for all we know. Belarus disregarded convention and put passengers in the harm way. Ryanair's flight didn't have a choice. Simple as that.

> Look, ignoring moral standing, every countries have fugitives they want to capture.

if you ignore moral standing, you ignore a code of values that, when applied to fugitives of all kinds, allows you to distinguish those on the good side from those on the bad side. Your effective position in that regard is that there are no principles by which people bear responsibility for their actions, which is a basis of the notion of fairness and the whole body of knowledge that we call justice. And if there's neither responsibility nor justice, there shouldn't be a concern about the incident in the first place, as everyone is in their own right to do whatever they want, including forcing a plane to land with a means of fighter jets.

Next, to the point of "Talking about motive is meaningless. How that being carried out is important". Observe that by this standard, in an alternative universe, a hitler would have been acquited if, instead of gas chambers and concentration camps, people were given "vitamins" that would silently kill them in their sleep at their homes.

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