The part of TFA that seems to be glossed over in the comments here is that Belarus released a video in the last 12 hours of him confessing to "crimes", which was presumably extracted under physical duress.
EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
71–80 of 422 posts
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#72Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#73Unfortunately, the real losers of this situation will be the Belarusian people, many of whom have immigrated to nearby countries like Poland or Germany. They will now (probably) be unable to visit family members easily, as flights will have to reroute through Istanbul or Russia.
Pretty much the same situation with Iran. Actions intended to punish an unjust government mostly just hurt their citizens.
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#74This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021... "- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;" decision has still to be made by the council, and then - to my understanding - implemented by all m…
> This is not exact, the EU ban decision is not taken yet. see link here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021 ... The decision is taken. You are misunderstanding what you are reading. The press release follows an urgent meeting from the Council. The Council is the reunion of all the EU heads of state. They have already agreed to the ban. The sentence you are quoting just means that they now h…
Planes from Minsk are travelling from and to Stockholm as we speak. For what it's worth Swedish authorities claim decision not taken by EU yet.
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#75All bark no bite. Assuming they got help from Russia, the gas pipeline (Nord Stream 2) is still going as planned. Germany must be sweating right now, how to look like as if they are actually committed to any sanctions, but in reality to not compromise their little joint project with Russia.
Actually the one sweating should be Russia, because on the long haul (10-20 years), Germany is going to be energy independent due to massive investments (also subsidies) into renewable energy. Most of the countries that largely depend on oil/gas exports (Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc..) are going to be facing a major socioeconomic crises in the next decades.
"Actually the one sweating should be Russia, because on the long haul (10-20 years), Germany is going to be energy independent due to massive investments (also subsidies) into renewable energy."
ROTFL
Edit: Yes, please feel free to show your ignorance and lack of basic math skills and downvote this comment. For all others: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
I am sure Russia is not scared. Who should be scared is the world and who is scared is me but such dumb comments.
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#76Unfortunately, the real losers of this situation will be the Belarusian people, many of whom have immigrated to nearby countries like Poland or Germany. They will now (probably) be unable to visit family members easily, as flights will have to reroute through Istanbul or Russia. Pretty much the same situation with Iran. Actions intended to punish an unjust government mostly just hurt their citizens.
It's group guilt and punishment, a dehumanizing practice that ignores personal circumstances and is OK with collateral damage. A blunt tool.
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#77I wasn't sure how big Belarusian airlines was, but their summer 2021 timetable shows a number of flights to Europe: https://en.belavia.by/webroot/delivery/files/TimeTable_en_s2... They appear to have 30 planes split between Boeing and Embraer: https://en.belavia.by/company/air_fleet/
A lot of planes fly Belarus - Egypt, which means flying through Greek/Cyprus airspace.
Will be interesting if Ukraine and/or Turkey responds, as flights from Belarus to Istanbul would be effected too. Ukraine (and Turkey) are part of Eurocontrol, but not part of the EU.
Obviously Belarus will still be flying east to Russia
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#78Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also sanctioned involved individuals. It's more like a family kidnaps their own kid while he was at your birthday party, and as response you get a restraining order and freeze some of their bank accounts.
The citizenship of the victim doesn't really matter. You're are not the property of the country where you are a citizen. Especially, not if you live abroad.
Are you saying a kid is the property of his family...?
Anyway, citizenship matters, it is one of the many elements that determine jurisdiction. The US taxes and prosecutes (!) his citizens anywhere in the world, for example; and extradition is a thing.
Legal protection to a foreign citizen abroad is extended by the host country, and that's really what the problem is here: the journalist was effectively protected by European law at all times (going from EU country to EU country with a EU airline), but Belarus invaded our legal space with a competing jurisdiction claim and enforced it with guns and subterfuge. That cannot be allowed.
Re: EU bans Belarusian airlines from European skies
#80Unfortunately, the real losers of this situation will be the Belarusian people, many of whom have immigrated to nearby countries like Poland or Germany. They will now (probably) be unable to visit family members easily, as flights will have to reroute through Istanbul or Russia. Pretty much the same situation with Iran. Actions intended to punish an unjust government mostly just hurt their citizens.
Poland isn't that far from Belarus (they are direct neighbours). People travel overland between those two, it is also quite a bit cheaper.
Even Czech Belarussians tend to take the bus back home.
It is going to be worse for expats in France or Britain, though.