Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace
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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 regime.
EU did the same thing in 2013 by forcing the Bolivian president's plane to land in an effort to catch Snowden. They have no moral or legal standing here whatsoever.
Those EU countries didn’t allow the plane into their airspace, encouraging it to land in a third country to refuel.
Belarus called in a fake bomb threat and used their fighter jets to force a passenger flight to land in their territory, not to mention the KGB officers on board making a scene.
Outcome might be similar, but it’s specifically the tactics used which make this unacceptable.
Seems like a trivial difference. Denying access to your airspace comes with the implicit threat of fighter interception.
The Morales jet was warned ahead of time in a legal way, not intercepted and forced to land in an unintended destination.
No persons from the Morales jet were detained.
One is an lawful act (perhaps imoral in some way) , and one is an arbitrary act outside of any lawful framework . I hope this clears the confusion.
It's not that Belarus' actions are admissable. It's that the West is acting in a hypocritical way.
If Belarus had as much power as the US, they surely would have followed the same route and forced all the surrounding nations to close their airspace. The end result would be the same.
The stark difference between the way the West does it is that you have a choice whenever to comply or pick an alternative, whereas Belarus left no choice.
EU, as a matter of routine, forbids certain persons from entering their airspace, has refused entry countless times to planes (some of them airborne) based on passenger manifests. Nobody would have batted an eye if Belarus would have done the same.
Pointing a gun (armed MiG fighter) at a civilian airplane based on who is a passenger using a deceptive pretext, outside laws and regulations, is several orders of magnitudes worse than lawful application of rules. If you fail to see why, read about habeas corpus.
And I'm hindsight Austria probably regrets they didn't deny access too, because then the potato wouldn't have landed on their soil.
It's not very bold to say: "pass don't involve me", but it's not necessarily a conspiracy to intercept a plane. That would have to involve a lot of people, and would probably leak..
All this whataboutism isn't really bringing much to the discussion here...
What next, the West can't complain about human rights violations in HK or Mongolia just because US police shot some dude (again)?
* It generally has no context. Yes, the West did something similar. It does not follow that the West will engage in the same type of systemic evil, that argument must be made on its own.
* Whataboutism often implies that naughty behavior is ok; that the hypocrisy of the West is justification for some further evil. One is at best making the argument that everyone is evil so just do it
* It consistently assumes the ignorance of particularly Americans - that if you just tell the dumb American that his government did something bad too, the scales will fall from their eyes, they will accept everything is evil and meaningless, and they will stop criticizing you
* the West is just plain better, on the historical record, at admitting and correcting hypocrisy. It’s a kind of meta-hypocrisy for these countries that never actually implement a liberal system to do such a great job of helping us improve ours, by pointing out flaws we’re secure enough to fix and they’re not.
Moreover, whataboutism does not prove that only power exists. Much the opposite: it proves that, at least in the West, moral norms can have force. Else why would Easterners bother with it?
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.
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.
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, where no internal criticism is allowed?
Edit (forgot to mention): also, participating in anti-government protests often results in people losing their jobs or being expelled from the universities
Edit 2: also, there is an ongoing crisis with the independent media: the Russian government is trying to suffocate the independent news outlets by classifying them as foreign agents (which has pretty bad practical outcomes for the news outlet)
This is quickly becoming the situation in the US if you criticize popular political movements.
If you enjoy audio fiction, or short stories you might enjoy “The Revolution, brought to you by Nike”. It was written by an ad industry insider, and touches on a lot of issues regarding corporate self-censorship. (It’s a few years old, and predates Nike’s recent political activism):
https://escapepod.org/2018/09/06/escape-pod-644-the-revoluti...
... oh, that's not what you meant?
For China and Russia, etc, it feels as if by mocking the hypocrisy of the West they are naively assuming that there's no such criticism from within the West.
I think this is revealing but I might be wrong.
It is exactly the same in Russia, you may not mention certain historical facts at all, e.g. Germany-USSR cooperation during 1939-1941
The Chinese Wikipedia has an article on the 1989 Tienanmen Square massacre, for example. I would assume it's not available in China. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B%E4%BA%8B%E4...
Someone is downvoting this comment to death, so I'm sharing the story for the brave and curious.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/05...
https://deadspin.com/vladimir-putin-scores-eight-goals-in-ru...
It might be a crime, but it's not enforced enough, obviously.
And the main reason I am worried is that I can see no path towards a peaceful de-escalation. It is a foregone conclusion in the West that "Russia = bad" and any attempt to say anything counter to that narrative gets you labeled a pro-Kremlin troll. Let's see how deep in the grey this comments ends up for example.
Think Germany after WW1. Humiliated, defeated country. The people of such countries tend to follow leaders who promise to make them great again. When they do, they get further mockery and isolation. And I think it's been conclusively proven that this only breeds more radicalism.
But most will read this as "if you are not with us then you are against us" and turn up the intensity.
Interestingly, critics of repressive regimes exhibit _themed_ carelessness; those who were a bit too open in Apartheid South Africa fell down _stairs_, instead.
That's a tough question. For example, when I was active in TikTok (I grew tired of it pretty fast), I've made a lot of very critical videos that had a lot of views. In one of them, that got almost 100k views, I explicitly said that Putin and his gang are usurping power, and while the current Russian laws say that it's punishable up to 20 years in prison, I think that they deserve the death penalty. I did not get in any trouble for that. But many others from Russian Libertarian Party (which I'm a member of) have, even though they've said much less. May be they had a wider reach, or may be it's just random, I don't know. And I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of years later I'll get 5 years of prison for these TikToks.
Yes, plenty of people inside those countries do not like regime and openly discuss it on public internet websites. I don't know about China situation so I can't make a direct comparison. If you're very popular blogger and you'll make direct insults to Putin (or any other person with high position), you might be fined or even jailed, there are laws prohibiting insults against people, but those cases are very rare. And nobody hunts ordinary people.
> 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.
Huh? HN is pretty much against Russia, Belarus, etc. Those who try to defend usually are heavily downvoted and labeled as kremlin bots.
Anyway people usually are gathered with similar viewpoints. Any outsiders are expelled quickly. I know web forums, where most of people are holding pro-Russian viewpoint and I know web forums, where most of people are holding pro-West viewpoint. But I know no webforum with balanced opinion. I think that for US people Republicans vs Democrats might be a close analogy.
> nobody hunts ordinary people
Unless they have something bad to say about the regime. These don’t add up, are bloggers not ordinary people? How can you be ok with this?
That's not true.
> are bloggers not ordinary people?
No, they're influencers.
> How can you be ok with this?
Why wouldn't I be ok with this? Nobody should be allowed to insult anyone.
What "associated astern european states" do you mean?
Seriously, it's been over thirty years since the end of Cold War and people still think there are some eastern European states associated with Russia... Almost all of them are in the EU now with the notable exception of Ukraine which is in a state of de facto war with Russia. Even Lukashenko has a bitter-sweet relationship with Putin.
So one would never refer to them as "Russia and associated eastern european states" because, frankly speaking, Kremlin has no friends in Eastern Europe. (I specifically differentiate between Kremlin with its cold-blooded war crimes, and Russian people, who are normal nice folks and are a significant part of the total population of Eastern Europe.)
1. High-ranking official says they're "gravely/deeply/very concerned" within the first 24-48h.
2. Some EU parliament member mentions the problem within two or three weeks, shaming other members. A clip of this few minutes long speech gets shared all over social media.
3. Absolutely nothing happens until everyone forgets about the issue.
Over and over again, issue after issue, day after day.
Well, I don't.
But this is the only way to take direct action - as the individual members are not of a single mind.
Much that the USA was or did 50-70 years ago was decidedly not democratic and not their proudest moment.
Guns don't solve everything.
Interventions in Iraq, Lybia and Syria can be seen as failures if we consider the bold goal to bring democracy to the Middle East. But at least these countries don't attack other countries any more - ISIS as evil as it is can't cause as much harm as these could.
In any case I guess with Eastern Europe it's more likely to work like it did in Yugoslavia than in Middle East. Belarus has really strong civil society, all they are missing is really some guns.
Lybia is more of a mess than under Qaddafi, which means the issues with migration to Europe have worsened and the Lybians themselves are worse than they were. Same for Iraq. I won’t get into Syria since that wasn’t really a straight military intervention.
Yea, what Belarus really needs now is a good civil war, so that Putin can annex more territory on one side and we can create a new border that will be forever disputed. Or, as alternative, we can have them be the casus belli for thermonuclear war between NATO and Russia, that will work great.
Or you know, we can wait. Worst case scenario, Lukashenko sooner or later will die. Best case, enough of his security apparatus will decide he’s not worth propping up anymore. Either way, no guns required.
Those are the only two options? Like how you can either have people dying because they cant afford a surgery, or you become EUSSR?
What good is quick action going to do?
It might be better to let this guide trading policies in the future.
No offense to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but he probably wasn't worth trouble :)
The geopolitical armchair experts complain more about responses than actually giving realistic suggestions to give.
(Sure, we can cut Belarus out, and see thousands of "Russian tourists" go for a holiday there right after - maybe that would be a good response?). And yes, you won't see me defending Borrell.
Presumably that's because of a lack of orthographic knowledge on my part... or is it something more subtle (say, the belorusian language differing from Russian)? I have a vague memory of languages in the former Yugoslavia being either "ekavsky" or "ijekavsky".
From the top of my head:
- Divert EU planes to avoid Belarus.
- Prevent Belarus' aeroplanes from flying over the EU.
- Increase sanctions towards Belarus officials.
etc etc
All of that means it's early to complain about any lack of European reaction. In some areas there has been a strong response already, and it will likely get stronger in the next few weeks.
I often have little alternative but to fly with Ryanair, as the airport in my hometown has been effectively taken over by them during a downturn. I honestly don't even experience much of the "cheapness" - for one reason or another, flying with my kids always ends up costing as much as on a regular airline. They currently owe me 600 quid for a flight I had booked pre-pandemic which obviously got cancelled - and they'd rather sit on a "voucher" for a decade rather than refund me, of course. I'm happy they changed the market a bit, but that was 30 years ago, now they're just a garden variety sociopathic business.
(Also probably will get counted as "toothless". That's kinda of my point)
Politicians scare easily and will protect themselves. If journalists can be arrested so can politicians.
I would say 99% and you’re just perpetuating the same propaganda.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I've posted endlessly for many years about how the overwhelming majority of such accusations are based on nothing but fantasy—poisonous fantasy, which it is not ok to pollute the threads with, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. No more of this please, regardless of political orientation or ideology or nation.
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Foreign_and_Security_Po...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/borrell-...
Sadly this is one of the current issues of the EU project, nation-states flatly refuse to hand over anything related to defense. It's a great victory for the US.
It looks that I'm picking on him, but he is just a very good example. I can talk a lot about others, but this thread is politicized enough already.
Chances are this will not change until there is a serious rethinking of the European role in NATO. As long as the big decisions are taken there, there is no real role for an EU "ministry" beyond trade interests.
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
Some countries go above and beyond; Russia typically grants overflight access to one airline per country, so SAS has the ability to fly over Russia while Norwegian Air never has.
In any case grandparent poster is probably just repeating info out of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdNDYBt9e_U&t=382s
MH17 being shot down meant a huge diversion of flights over a well trafficked route. It's not huge but the overflight fees add up after a while if people avoid crossing your borders, effective ATC in most countries rely on these aeronautical charges coming in every year.
While the effects might not be immediate and a stubborn government can shrug it off, there is certainly long-term consequences if airlines make a decision to declare a country off-limits for routes.
They just don't want their planes diverted by MiGs.
That's the problem with sanctions, at some point you run of of things to take away. From then on your target can pretty much do what ever they want, knowing that things can't really get any worse.
There are a lot more things that could be taken away.
Traditionally a next step would be political, then material, support for an organized internal opposition, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious one in this case.
Yes, this is already happening since last year, and was already scheduled to be expanded for a fourth time in June. I assume this clinches that, and probably more.
But the fact nobody seems to know there's been sanctions since last year suggests my other point - they're woefully ineffective as long as they can get other support.
NATO is a military alliance, not a trade union. There's no way for them to organize what you're suggesting.
> It would take a week.
Fidel might like to have a word with you...
My point is: There's a lot of people in this thread demanding a vague "something" be done, but it's really not clear whether there is "something" between what the EU's plan has already been for months and a hot war, other than some ill-considered immediate panic.
Yes, in some fairytale world the ruling National Party could have continued "doing whatever they want". Here in reality things would certainly have got worse, and the National Party government could see that the end-game was inescapable. Sanctions worked then, and they'll work again.
Even assuming you're right about the cause, the success story of sanctions would be a South African economy that never recovered leading to the suffering of millions. That's what happens when they "work."
If on the other hand the population is already angry at the regime, maybe it has the desired effect.
Idle musing without supporting evidence.
Edit: But to be clear, I think the US sanctions on Cuba are gratuitous and cruel. Cuba is not some rogue state and there are many worse dictatorships that aren't sanctioned. However, I think it reinforces the point that "sanctions can be devastatingly effective applied by a significant majority of the world" because in the Cuba case the rest of the world didn't agree.
There were considerable limits (particularly on foreign investment in Cuba) because parts of the US sanctions regime include retaliatory sanctions on entities making use of certain property in Cuba (some of these were suspended for a while, but restored under Trump in 2017.)
Unfortunately talking only about sanctions ignores that plenty of governments resisted and watered down the sanctions because the apartheid regime's anti-communist ideology.
The negotiations to phase out apartheid for a democracy began mere months after the fall of the Berlin wall. At that point the collapse of the USSR was imminent, and the apartheid regime's utility as an anti-Communist outpost had expired.
But also knowing that things can get better. The incentive to do the "right" thing doesn't disappear. It only can't be increased further.
The EU's response is so important here, they have already proved time and time again they are a dog which is all bark and no bite.
I'm sure China and Turkey are watching eagerly.
It doesn't have to be a military response, but no response or the typical waving the finger in the air, can not be afforded here.
People keep saying that as if that was a kind of universally acknowledged wisdom.
Here is a map of the 39 countries targeted by European sanctions (not counting the ones specifically targeting ISIS territories or various regions of Ukraine): https://sanctionsmap.eu/#/main
There has been sanctions against Belarus for a while, suspended when they freed political prisoners, reinstated in light of the recent crackdown on elections. Here is the list of the 88 persons and 7 legal entities under EU sanctions (well technically, Council of Europe): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
Turkey doesn't have to "watch", they also received sanctions after the drilling standoff two years ago.
Holding off on a few weapons exports here and there is meaningless.
> People keep saying that
If it's the general concensus there may be some reason for that. I'm sure Belarus wouldnt try this with a US plane.
> Turkey doesn't have to "watch", they also received sanctions after the drilling standoff two years ago.
If the reaction to hijacking an EU plane flying from one EU nation to another is indeed just some export/import sanctions, then yes I do think Turkey will find that interesting.
Economic sanctions are the most effective non-military actions states can take against each others.
Short of military invasion what do you suggest EU does?
First of all it'd be a problem to the people of Poland and Ukraine, but I guess virtue signalling matters more than real problems.
Edit: seems this is allowed by AV Herald under certain circumstances [1]:
> If you purchase a subscription, you are allowed to republish any textual information provided by our articles during your subscription period in any form within your publication - you are allowed to copy and paste our articles onto your website/newspaper/magazine - provided you credit The Aviation Herald properly by providing a link to our original article.
And the footer of that article says:
> This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
Anyway, it's probably better to link directly to the original (also a lighter website).
Ryanair said that the crew had been "notified by Belarus (Air Traffic Control) of a potential security threat on board and were instructed to divert to the nearest airport, Minsk".
So they didn’t have an incident onboard? There were no hijackers claiming to have a bomb? Just ATC telling them they have a bomb on board? And instead of landing at the nearest airport of Vilnius they turned to take a longer, more indirect route to a further away airport of Minsk?
This would seem obviously suspicious to me. If you have a bomb on board, wouldn’t you want to go to the nearest airport, not the one further away? Wouldn’t you ask why you are being redirected further away? Then wouldn’t the response when you point out you’re closer to Vilnius and for safety want to land there make it clear to you something fishy was up? I would love to hear the radio communications and any communications back to Ryanair operations on this one.
Closer, but it had the wrong altitude for Vilnius. They were intercepted earlier. See this visualization
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1396482250812841986
https://www.flightradar24.com/RYR7BJ/27cf72bf
FR3340 flying from Pafos, Cyprus to Tallin, Estonia, is about to cross from Ukraine into Belarus airspace
A route avoiding Belarus would have added at 56 miles to the 1740 mile journey, about 3%.
They’re just ruthless in cost cutting to get those profits
Good, let's do it.
Tier 3, extraction by mercenaries -- pay more for extra comfy helicopter. Tier 2, extraction by bribery. Tier 1, your captor will be overthrown in a coup backed by a foreign government. Not applicable if your captor is one of the following states: blah blah blah.
There is no consensus inside UN on what is good and what is bad for people, countries have veto rights, which shouldn't exist if there were clear guidelines on what is allowed and what is not. Please show us some real actions and make authoritarian regimes feel pain for doing harm. Shutdown all the incoming and outgoing flights to/from Belarus, including transits and goods.
I just finished reading "Washington Bullets" [1]. (Part of) It is a crash course into how and why institutions like UN, IMF etc. are they way they are.
And honestly, I just feel paralyzed after reading the book. These institutions just don't have the clout by design.
[1]: https://www.librarything.com/work/25426761/book/200164537
> The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.
If UN is committed to do something good for having better living standards and human rights, then they must keep their promise and try to do something, otherwise just stop pretending being someone you are not and shutdown this organization.
I think we have passed the point in human history where local/national interests were above any other interests, now we should think about interests of humans. Be it Russian, Belarus, Palestinian, Israeli, Uighur, Armenian, black or white and so on, if human rights are violated, action should be taken and there must be a consequence for violating it, not only words thrown. US shouldn't have veto rights when rights of humans are violated, be it your best friend Israel or Saudi Arabia.
The UN has its issues, like the League of Nations before that, but it's still a place where the world tries to communicate and (occasionally) solve (some) problems. It has lasted longer than the LoN precisely because it has not taken the "activist" bent of its predecessor. It cannot solve everything, maybe even anything, but it's still better to have such an assembly than not having it. If anything, it provides some legitimacy to humanitarian efforts, when enough countries in the Security Council agree on a deployment.
I am not saying invading, what I am saying is taking real actions by sanctioning all equally, not just sanctioning Russia because some EU countries or the US doesn't like it, but also sanction Saudi Arabia and Israel for violating human rights.
In general it is terrifying how far my country went down the path of turning into another Turkmenistan\North Korea over the last 1 year+. Belarus was never a great example, of having fair courts ot great cops, but now it is just horrible. Half of my friends spent some time in jail, over the last year. Some were protesting actively, some wore clothing of "political colours" and were spotted by cops, some were arrested just because they were walking on the street and cops were in the mood to stir things up. Courts turned into a show where no matter how you were arrested or what was the basis for your arrest, you will get a fine and a few weeks (best case scenario - 15 days) in prison. Sadly, i feel that things are not going to get better anytime soon.
tldr: Donbass and Belarus. Fly around if you wanna live.
This year even my ever optimistic friends who were never intent to move have been sent packing. The hijacking makes things even worse for the unwillingly growing Belarusian diaspora, but there should not be mucking around. I advocate for the strongest pushback possible, even though anticipating a lacklustre response.
And anything that hurts regime is worth it, no matter how anemic it might seem, in the long run it is all worth it.
But now it appears we're getting some pushback from the EU. Less than I hoped (so far), but more than I feared.
Couple this with the EU's overall weakness and fragmented interests (eg nordstream 2), and it's hard to imagine a good outcome.
A few sanctions will come out of this that will make EU officials look good and further place Belarus into Russian hands (namely, as you wrote, making Belarus airspace dependent on Russian airspace). Let's see what the real leader of the EU has to say.
If the EU can't stand for the people of Belarus, for the sake of freedom and human rights, then it will have once again failed.
Plus there is even comments from Russia’s Duma about how this can be damaging for Russia.
Until the military sides with opposition (it won't) there will be no changes at all. Even if military gets involved, there will be russian "voluteers" (see Russian volunteers in Moldova 90, Balkans 92-01, Chechnya 93, Ukraine 14 ) that are there to help fight new "junta".
And then it will result in Ukraine II: electric boogaloo. Eastern Belarus is de-facto a part of Smolensk oblast' with some Russia funded murderers creating an "independent" republic. This was played out to death over the last 30 years.
And don't get me wrong. All while this will be happening, EU will be very concerned, that is for sure.
None of this will happen ofc, because all resistance will be suppressed with excessive force, at the very start. No trials, no judges.
Yes it costs to fly through a country's airspace.
I found a map for that https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ab...
That is a map of responsibility for air traffic control/flight information services. The US has a responsibility to provide those services across a huge region of the Pacific; probably because they're the only large country with presence in that region. They charge for these services for aircraft which are not otherwise subject to US taxes.
The Atlantic is a little more interesting as it appears to cover the Bahamas; but one surmises that the majority of traffic in the region is nevertheless bound for the US East coast (note how it avoids Canada-Europe route sharply, and only protrudes into the Caribbean around PR).
In my country the word is frequently used to carry sarcasm towards the role that Lukashenko believes himself to have. In other words, it is meant as sarcasm towards the tyrant's ego, not the gullibility of the nation.
> it was originally used to mock Belarusian for supposedly liking his approach to ruling the country.
not even close. It has always been used in the "leader" meaning described above.
>He's no father to any of us, and it's insulting to Belarusians to see someone referring to him this way.
as nobody uses it as "father" in this context it is hard to see your point.
Though this trick (of capturing a dissident by forcing a plane down) probably only works once.
Mapbox for example, sources a considerable amount of its workforce from Minsk, and they’re little better than slaves because they can’t quit or complain or they’ll be sent to the mines.
We sit here and say that this kind of behavior is villainous, but we happily do business with those who profit off of the suffering of others. For shame.
Working in IT in Belarus is highly coveted, highly cushy (often 4-day work-weeks, company retreats, WFH, etc), and pays 5x ~ 10x average salary (i.e. you become moderately rich, very fast).
If you don't like working for one IT company, you can switch to another one.
Some are US-standard crappy Wordpress mills or whatever, but if you're working in IT you're not oppressed and you're not lucky: you're a person with skills that are in-demand and you're getting well compensated for using them.
Are you sure? Any sources? That sounds like bs to me. While IT job market is shrinking, even if ppl quit there is still a large pool of jobs in pretty much any direction.
Whether that still holds this year I don't know. I have not studied flight schedules for a while.
If yes forbidding Belavia to land in EU countries might have an even bigger effect than usual.
So things might actually change. But then again, it is easy to criticize when you are not in power.
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.
I don't find Russian involvement very believable. Belarus don't need Russia to force a plane to land, they can do their own state-funded terrorism like any dictatorship.
Russia needs it too, since they can't sell with profits internally.
From my POV, it's just an additional option you get to sanction them with if they are acting in bad faith ( again) while getting cheaper options.
A pertinent difference is that the plane started out in Ukraine and was compelled to return. Still, this seems quite unusual.