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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

#201

Post by supportlocal4h »

oytis wrote: post #166
hutzlibu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you prefer a strong, centralised EU government with a strong leader (aka dictator)? Well, I don't. But this is the only way to take direct action - as the individual members are not of a single mind.

Democracies can be capable of quick direct action too. See U.S. esp. U.S. some 50-70 years back. Democracy is no excuse for being inefficient, if democracies don't find a way to protect their values and interests, they will eventually be replaced by more efficient states

I was just explaining to my children that there was a time when the USA government employed censors (an actual job title) to control television content.

Much that the USA was or did 50-70 years ago was decidedly not democratic and not their proudest moment.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#202

Post by ruairispain »

golergka wrote: post #28
dekoruotas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has also been set in motion: https://i.redd.it/elts5rgbg0171.jpg

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.

The difference here is the European politicians will be scared shitless if they fly over a country where they think they might get arrested.

Politicians scare easily and will protect themselves. If journalists can be arrested so can politicians.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#203

Post by sneak »

notahacker wrote: post #102
sneak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that they were refused entry into the airspaces of several countries Countries that minutes earlier they were cleared to fly through, and had planned to fly through. Had they ignored the refusal and proceeded as planned? Same ending: fighter jets. Let’s not pretend here that this is different.

Clearance to fly through and clearance to make an emergency landing due to doubts about the fuel gauge (we have the cockpit audio discussing the latter...) are not the same thing. If there was really a dastardly plot to capture the guy that wasn't even on the aircraft, they'd have gone for fighter jets, not "don't land in our country, land in the country you're flying over where a diplomat will be mildly undiplomatic…

They swatted the plane with machine gun guys as soon as it landed. Let's not pretend.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#204

Post by eplanit »

romanovcode wrote: post #161
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.

Germany has general election this September and since Merkel is gone for good there is a huge possibility that the CDU (the majority party for several years now and was in favor of NordStream) will lose to green party. Green party is completely against NordStream2. So things might actually change. But then again, it is easy to criticize when you are not in power.

Germany should really consider term limits for the bundestag and chancellor. Allowing a single politician to rule the country for an entire generation is absurd.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#205

Post by bellyfullofbac »

s_dev wrote: post #51
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…

Russia and Belarus make money from the planes flying over their airspace. They won't be collecting that money so there is at least one consequence.

Clarification: not just these 2 countries. I wonder if all countries do it.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#206

Post by baybal2 »

struxure wrote: post #59
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…

Criticism is allowed unless you have ambitions to work in government. Critique of the government has become actually quite common in the Russian stand up comedy scene. There are some exceptions, like you cannot show any public disrespect to the Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov (you can google how people apologise to him). Edit (forgot to mention): also, participating in anti-government protests often resul…

You don't know anything.

Few hundred people paid with their lives for speaking their mind. Either killed in the most gruesome way, or just customarily disappeared.

There are at least a hundred something of journalists only who were murdered.

It's a brutal KGB-mafia dictatorship trying its best masquerading as a normal country. You will always see Russian diplomats on every high nosed UN, and OSCE talkshop on human rights, and blah blah blah, and yes, they like it more than life to come, and laugh at all kinds of your "security summits"

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#207

Post by casept »

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.

The central government doesn't even want that pipe all that badly anymore, it's mostly the clowns governing the federal state of Mecklenburg-Prepommerania who want to continue.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#208

Post by VortexDream »

pydry wrote: post #177
VortexDream wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 B…

And yet permission to fly over their airspace wasn't revoked while they were in their airspace. If they had wanted to do so, they could have. They did not. So I don't see the sense in constructing this strawman of "oh but it meant they could've scrambled fighters".

If Lukashenko had done the same thing France had done, the plane wouldn't have been allowed to enter Belarusian airspace. That's not what he did. What he did was far more egregious and far more dangerous and threatening.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#209

Post by Aperocky »

motives wrote: post #15
dekoruotas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has also been set in motion: https://i.redd.it/elts5rgbg0171.jpg

Worth noting that the EU has banned entire nations (such as Kazakhstan and others) from flying in EU airspace before for not meeting safety expectations. It is absolutely within possibility to ban Belarus for an overt Chicago convention violation.

Only the airlines, not the nation.

You can fly from Kazakhstan on an European carrier to Europe. Europe previously have also banned shoddy Soviet era airliners that are both incredibly loud, toxic and quite unsafe, which is the right thing to do.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#210

Post by romanovcode »

eplanit wrote: post #204
romanovcode wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has general election this September and since Merkel is gone for good there is a huge possibility that the CDU (the majority party for several years now and was in favor of NordStream) will lose to green party. Green party is completely against NordStream2. So things might actually change. But then again, it is easy to criticize when you are not in power.

Germany should really consider term limits for the bundestag and chancellor. Allowing a single politician to rule the country for an entire generation is absurd.

The limit is not set, however chancellor must be voted in every 46 to 48 months.

However your second point is not correct at all, Germany had made their beurocracy specifically in such a way after WW2 that one person cannot dictate/rule the country. Every decision must pass through appropreate ministries first. This is one of the reasons COVID vaccination rollout was so slow in the beginning but after all the "approvals" were met they are vaccinating ~1m people a day. Chancellor in Germany is not even close to power of President in US, for example.

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