Belarus diverts Ryanair flight to arrest journalist

[Enkore]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57219860

So looks like another diplomatic conflict brewing in Europe... Many EU officials are calling for major action against Belarus and I'm sure Russia will be in there too as they are closely associated.

I think its despicable that something like that is allowed to happen.

I believe though that we should also not participate or support such actions ourselves (west).

There was a similar case in 2016 where Ukrainians forced a Belarus aircraft to return to arrest a Ukraine opposition member.

https://belarusinfocus.info/interna...ane-not-affect-belarusian-ukrainian-relations

No one heard of it I imagine as it was not condoned or reported at all.

Also a more home hitting one, 2013 incident where a Presidents plane was forced to land in the EU due to rumor's that Snowden was on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-bolivia-plane-vienna

The reason I say this is because we have a habit of viewing events from one isolated angle in the west. Putin propaganda machine is already making rounds again. With the narrative look at west, they can do the same and no problem and yet if we do it - whole uproar against us. Which sadly is actually true.

I believe that for these actions to be fully effective we must be above them ourselves. Putin is smart and each time something like this happens its domestic propaganda galore.

Lastly, Ukraine themselves actually attempted to the same but failed in regards to capturing over 20 Russian soldiers who fought in the east for rebels. This is also making big news for domestic market as everyone is saying if Ukraine did it - EU/US would celebrate and say what a great achievement.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2020/08/...fficials-suspected-of-blowing-mid-special-op/

I am not defending Putin - on contrary - I believe that we are enabling his entrenchment in Russian politics by actions like this. We are not playing smart, he's using our actions for internal propaganda. I believe that if this continues heating up, the guy after Putin can very well be Hitler 2.0 and people will support him. The issue is that the story is extremely similar in China as well.

We need to actually raise above doing dubious things ourselves to make sure that does not happen and we do not end up with another conflict.

 

[Enkore]

If the airline just said no, what are they going to do shoot it down and kill 100s of people?

Very unlikely. To think otherwise would be extremely far-fetched. Ryanair would be fined though since I think its a law to follow directions of ground control of the country airspace you are in

 

[Enkore]

Given what the pilots were told by ATC, the chances of them NOT obeying are slim to none at all. From the beeb:

In a statement, Ryanair said that the crew were "notified by Belarus (Air Traffic Control) of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk".
​

Which made no sense because VNO (destination) was way closer than Minsk. The aircraft was something like 10 miles (I do not recall number but very very close) to the Lithuanian border.

 

[Enkore]

Yep, apparently the Lithuanian airport was closer.
Remember when the American ship shot down that airliner? All they got was medals...

Yeah America is not Belarus or Russia. There is a lot of things that would turn any country into international terrorist/pariah - by just merely copying some 'mild' things US has done in recent history.

 

[Enkore]

What's this journalist meant to have done, is he digging for dirt?

I think he's the founder or a major person of a media telegram group NEXTA or something that coordinated/coordinates protests and unrest against gov in Belarus. Its basically a channel where they come up and coordinate actions against the government.

 

[Enkore]

guess the russkies will reject all the rage from the west using the assange is still in prison argument. Bad day for air travel though.

Well the reality is that western liberal democratic world leads by example in these cases. We managed to hunt for Snowden, to the point of landing Bolivian president plane in search for him. We did a number on Assange. Then we decided to ignore and close eyes on blatant murder of Khashoggi.

Yet when a nasty dictator in Belarus decides to follow the example - world outcry. I mean its a kettle calling on a teapot.

I condone all of the above, I just wish we were actually better than those we sanction for their 'wrongs'.

Otherwise we are playing straight into these dictatorships internal propaganda

 

[Enkore]

Speculating here... But if you pulled out details on the last 100 or so major events that "shocked the west",

It's safe to say (and for good reason) that we don't want to be getting involved in everyone's business, but you can't let a big thing like this go by without saying that we're outraged by the actions.

Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Gulf wants to have a chat.

Heck and those are pretty hard power cases. How many soft-power moves have we done? The US embassy runs Ukraine by the looks of it. Russia is sanctioned to their boots so much so that we thanos clapped their GDP by almost 50%.

The only reason Putin even survived is because of his propaganda machine that we actively feed into. But we were clearly going in for a kill, not many dictators can survive a 50% GDP clap to their economy. He took that very personally it seems, judging by how he gives zero doodle lately.

The reason Belarus even had a chance of up-rising is because NATO members Lithuania and Poland stoked the fires as hard as they could.

I dont remember whats latest on Nord Stream 2, but arent we basically sanctioning anything and anyone trying to complete it in hope of wrecking it? Including sanctioning literally Germany.

So to say that US/Nato/West has little desire to intervene is errr. yeah.

 

[Enkore]

some people only understand violence launch the cruise missiles

Well that would probably be the last straw to push average Russian into rolling tanks into Eastern Europe. Would be a gift to Putin.

Remember, you attack Belarus by law you attack Russia.