Belarus skyjacking

[Rhea]

There’s a lot of talk about the various aspects of Belarus forcing a plane to land and take one of the passengers.

Apparently many countries are cancelling flights, and the Y ed board wrote

Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, has gone too far. Hijacking a commercial airliner to kidnap an opposition journalist is simply too dangerous a violation of international norms for the United States, the European Union and other responsible states to let pass without serious consequences

It feels like such a monumentally egregious breach.

What scenarios do you envision will come of it?

 

[barbos]

Well, the obvious consequence is Lukashenko can only fly within Belarus and Russia.

Belarus is not Russia. Belarus can not withstand sanctions the way Russia can. So looks like Belarus is going to become part of Russia.

As for the forced landing, there were precedents. US forced landing searching for Snowden apparently.

Interesting, Lukashenko is going to meet Putin in Sochi, Shortest distance to Sochi is over Ukraine
Would be interesting to see the pass he takes. My bet it would be over Russia

Of course pass over Ukraine involves eastern Ukraine whcih more than likely is forbidden aniway.

 

[laughing dog]

As for the forced landing, there were precedents. US forced landing searching for Snowden apparently.

Not using a military jet to force a landing, but it was also illegal.

 

[barbos]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bomb-threat-cited-in-belarus-hijacking-came-24-minutes-after?ref=home

Email from "Hamas" came 24 minutes after pilots were notified by people in Minsk
Must be weird case of quantum entanglement.