Re:Protasevich Street? Bucharest mulls changing address of B...
by pydry on Thursday May 27, 2021 @08:15AM
(#27302069)
Belarus are arguing that grounding a head of state is worse. The West is saying that grounding a civilian plane and escorting with fighter jets is worse.
I think people who are fully one one side of this are fully convinced by one of those. I don't think it's swaying people on the fence, however.
The individual does matter. It doesn't look great to start naming streets after arrested neo-nazis. If that story has legs (unclear if it does) this will really not endear Belarussians to the West and will play directly into Putin's narrative, which is that we enthusiastically support neonazis who fight Russia.
Re:Protasevich Street? Bucharest mulls changing address of B...
by f6v on Thursday May 27, 2021 @07:07AM
(#27301497)
Hate the player, not the game. The EU counties are highly likely(see, I adopted the Euro-Atlantic speak here) to be involved in trying to overthrow Lukashenko. Like him or not, but he acts in his own right.
If this were an American plane, I would fully consider it an act of war and make a lot of noise to that extent. If it were an American citizen, it would be worth—even if solely to draw a line—a tactical incursion to attempt exfiltration. But it’s not. We don’t have Nordstream or Orban or all the other capitulations Brussels (and Berlin) have made that create a geopolitical vulnerability with an actor willing to exploit them. The situation is thus properly complicated.
The only mitigating factor to Minks’s credit is Protasevich having never secured EU citizenship.