Air France cancels flights as Russia withholds clearance
reuters.com
reuters.com
I had half joked I wanted to take the Moscow -> Bejing train at some point , but I guess I'll reasses (my IRL contacts know how much I absolutely LOVE trains), but shit like this makes me inclined to keep spending that money on overpriced coffee or whatever.
I looked at the data[1], and Russia made ~11 billion dollars from tourism in 2015, so they must really value being petty since reading these things make them sound unwelcoming, unfriendly, and straight up antisocial.
[1] a pdf in they wayback machine cited on wikipedia https://web.archive.org/web/20150112082549/http://www.e-unwt...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028682/russia-federal-b...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028682/russia-federal-b...
Does this end at some point? Where there are no more formerly state owned resources to pillage and convert to Euros/CHF/USD?
Again, the argument is that it does not matter. As long as the people in power are well compensated the general wellbeing of federation is of little consequence.
It is pretty simple. People who barely scrape by have no time, resources or focus to be fighting. They can't have too much or too little.
...Is Russia slowly bankrupting itself by pretending to be its former self?
Two countries (Latvia and Estonia) have already flipped to the west (NATO members). Ukraine is torn between Russia and the west (that's what Maidan morphed into after starting off as an anti corruption protest). Lukashenko was engaged in a struggle with pro western opponents.
There's a proxy war going on on its borders. I don't think this is about Russia trying to dominate the world. I think it's about Russia wanting to buffer its most exposed border.
If Western Canada joined in an alliance with Russia and Eastern Canada was run by a pro American dictator do you think America would behave differently?
I think this comment is far too apologetic.
It would be an exposed chokepoint if Russia didn't also hold sevastopol, though.
If they gave up entirely on their foreign policy objectives a more likely scenario than tanks would be the Russian State ending up a fragmented, powerless mess.
I don't imagine a US led NATO coalition immediately rolling tanks into Moscow if all 5 countries flip to NATO, but stirring up a separatist movement on the borders of Belarus or Ukraine and then "helping" out? Definitely.
I don't for one second believe that the US will instantly grind to a halt after creeping up on the Russian border for 70 years.
As soon as Poland had a chance, they wanted into the EU or NATO, preferably both. They, Poland, desperately wanted in. Why? Because they wanted protection from Russia, and with good historical reason.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania? Same story. It wasn't that the US had a nefarious plot to ensnare the border countries in a US-dominated alliance. They desperately wanted in, because they have experience with being overrun by Russia.
If Russia doesn't like this, maybe they should work on making their neighbors not feel so afraid of Russia. Things like the Ukraine and Georgia? They are not helping.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-12/finlan...
[0] https://ifunny.co/picture/select-all-squares-with-finnish-sn...
The US didn't admit them to NATO because of the volume of their begging. It admitted them because it let them put military bases right on the border of its geopolitical rival.
Similarly when Cuba begged the Soviet Union for nukes a year after a failed US invasion attempt, the Soviet Union didn't put them there just because it was felt sorry for them.
In both cases the countries were legitimately seeking protection from invasion though.
I'm not really sure if it's practical for Russia to try and make its neighbors "feel safe enough to quit NATO". In all likelihood any overtures would be treated as a sign of weakness. But, maybe you have ideas about practical steps Russia could take that would convince Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia to quit NATO. I'd be curious if you did.
If anything, in a far future some more eastern states might apply for EU membership, but with the current state of things even that isn't overly likely and would happen in an absolutely peaceful manner.
And if you think that nuclear engineers are making significantly more than an average Ivan, then I have a bad news for you, that's unlikely. For example, a friend of mine works for a subcontractor of Roscosmos (Russian space activities corporation, basically russian "NASA") as an electronic measurements instrumentation engineer and makes 60000 rubles per month before taxes (roughly 850$ per month). That's a joke of a salary and he is only able to work there because he is owning a property in Moscow.
Most western countries can actually visit without getting a visa in your passport beforehand.
The US and the UK also benefit a lot from tourism, and yet they have an extremely hostile border control system + an extremely onerous visa application process (I got a Russian visa a few times... It's definitely simpler)
I want to start by saying I'm not sure Air France should be subsidized to the level we do. Its workers rules from the 80s are just not adapted anymore and protecting them with public money against normal competition is stupid. And I don't mean when compared to oil-funded middle east airlines (which are eating everyone's lunch in europe on an unfair basis), but compared with others EU airlines. KLM is being abused to pay for Air France's bills, for exemple, that's just wrong. They tried to push into low cost workers stopped it, they tried to keep competitive with high cost workers complained, it's stupid and weird. It has giant potential but we're ruining it.
With that said, Russia trying to punch our national carrier down means they guarantee we won't let Air France hurt too much. Why would Russia try to play the economic game against a country so much richer than it is a question I can't answer. Probably because we don't depend on their oil nor gaz and since that's virtually the only thing they do they don't have any thing else than their giant airspace to get back at us ...
All of that to say: Air France stock holders are probably happy at that news.
"which didn't get clearance"
not this part:
"so they don't fly"
At the less knuckle-dragging end of the Brexit voting spectrum, stuff like this showed a clear two-tier level of behaviour in the EU and was hard to rationalise in the minds of people somewhat on the fence.
I know that I - as a Remain voter - had an on-going irritation at the situation. Samesame huge state/EU loans to the likes of Spain's Ferrovial to go on spending sprees here too.
Perhaps if we'd as a country had a bit more spine and a bit less hesitance to occasionally mangle EU rules to our favour as our continental cousins were, our industrial Brexit-supporters (Dyson et al) might not have felt they were being so unduly hard done by.
Oh well, it matters not any more.
The British finance industry made out by bandits by having the best of EU, UK and worldwide financial markets. UK kept a much tighter control of its currency than mainland EU countries, and did pressure _constantly_ to get EU rulings in its favor.
Strangely, that rebate was mostly because of antagonism about French support for its food industries... .
That we've still not had a resolution to our financial market's future engagement with the EU shows how fundamentally [expletive]-ing stupid and utterly short-sighted Brexit was. Idiots, all.
Ssh, the only way we can get Hinkley Point C built at anything like reasonable cost is if the French government bails it out! :)
The British counterpart didn't fare so well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Nuclear_Fuels_Ltd
Heck, given how much money the current administration's spunked, we could just add some more zeroes to the deficit and double up... .
But yes, you're not wrong :)
- ed - the loss of the British Nuclear industry's one of the last generation's stupidest mess-ups.
This was a UK political choice, this could have been manage differently by UK government.
> Perhaps if we'd as a country had a bit more spine and a bit less hesitance to occasionally mangle EU rules to our favour
UK is the country that has mangle EU rules the most.
Can you explain what you mean by this? To me, it's always seemed that Germany and France benefit most from EU integration at the expense of the southern nations which have less industrialized export economies. I'm American, but my two cofounders are British and Swiss, so European politics is a pretty common topic of discussion.
Germany and France differ somewhat in that the EU structurally benefits them. However, they also participate in all mechanisms and, as a consequence, pay a lot of money toward other member states.
The UK, by contrast, has tried to minimize obligations while trying to keep some benefits intact.
Anyway, thing of the past.
It doesn't seem weird if Russia has a history of using its valuable airspace as a geopolitical weapon. (A 10 min video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdNDYBt9e_U)
France's Macron was vocal about EU issuing sanctions against Belarus. Putin supports Belarus and in a tit-for-tat show, they denied Russia clearance to Air France flights. The motivations for economic punishments from both sides seem obvious.
I once spoke with an Air France flight attendant on a domestic flight (Paris => Rennes) and she told me that her employment contract was governed by Irish law. She was French. I don't know if this is representative of all the flight staff status. But for me it is a bit weird that a French company, owned by the French state, employs French people under an Irish status.
As a publicly traded company they are to some extent required to choose employment options that are financially beneficial, I would guess that's happening here.
There’s probably some union rules restricting them from working exclusively outside of the country they’re based.
> I want to start by saying I'm not sure Air France should be subsidized to the level we do.
This is the point. It's pork barrel of a flag carrier being under a gunpoint. The message is "I will not let even your most overpriced, over-subsidised, bathing in cash airline to make money"
I'm not sure if the idea above makes sense to somebody in American cultural context.
Great power politics don't change a lot.
I don’t want to miss my dear JetBrains products ;)
France is not "so much richer" than Russia. You chop 40% of France's GDP and that's the GDP of Russia. Sure that's bigger but then Russia has 2x the amount of people and... 30x the country size. 30x.
I have absolutely zero doubts that Russia is going to overtake France's GDP in a not so distant future.
Since losing the Waterloo battle France went from world's 1st superpower (debatable) to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th (in the eighties and maybe still in the nineties?), then 6th and now 7th. And the path seems pretty clear to me.
(I'm not russian btw and I don't approve what Russia is doing here but I know how "cocorico" french people can be and I wouldn't want others to be mislead so I simply present facts: chop 40% of France's GDP and you've got Russia's GDP. Russia has 2x the population and 30x the land of France)
Germany and it's neo empire, AKA EU, is spineless and pathetic and deserves to die the slow death it is facing while China and Russia crushes the last hope and light left in the world. Germany just can't help itself, time and again making the world a worse place. Germans truly learnt nothing, disingenuously saying "never again" while gladhanding with a authoritarian power openly engaging in genocide: https://neveragainrightnow.com/
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/russia-oi...
Who again is spineless?
And can't Germany do anything right without US holding their hand? But to be fair yes, Biden is equally pathetic and sad for gladhanding with Russia.
Come, show those Germans what decisive, principled action looks like.
A European plane with European passengers was downed. No Americans. Putin would not have signed off on a similar operation with an American plane.
U.S. geopolitical focus is presently in the Pacific. Getting sidetracked with whatever is going on between Berlin and Moscow doesn’t serve our interests.
The US imports many times more from Canada.
(Shame our politicians can't see past autumn...)
They already have thousands pointing at them and about seven thousand ready to fly back anyone dumb enough to attack them.
A few more German nukes doesn't change their risk at all.
Edit: maybe thousands of warheads were in Germany at the height of the cold war, though a quick look through Wikipedia isn't clear about the peak number of warheads.
During the cold wars, there were at times thousands of warheads in Germany.
Unlikely to happen until Merkel is out. She has been incredibly weak when it comes to Russia.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41447603
The shutdown of Germany's nukes is a result of corruption at the most senior level, and represents one of the greatest betrayals of the German people, of Europe, and of indeed the planet given the additional emissions.
If the EU is really serious about Russian and energy independence, they should be begin a mass program of nuclear power building across the bloc.
But its more likely that all of the senior European bureaucrats and politicians are corrupted at some level.
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutschlan... (2011)
https://atomkraftwerkeplag.wikia.org/de/wiki/Meinungsumfrage...
If the chancellor was corrupted, then what about senior media controllers and leaders of the Greens movement?
Tourism in Belarus would disappear instantly..
Note. when Russia* shot down a commerical jet over Ukraine, it probably was a mistake. At-least the opposite is far fetch we're willing to believe it wasn't intentional.
* We can also say pro-russian separatists, but they are probably one and the same.
https://estonianworld.com/security/russia-puts-estonia-on-th...
In terms of actual long-term goals, I think, he aims to replace Lukashenko with a new pro-Russia president, so he tries to keep Lukashenko happy in the process (also making him more dependent on Russia internationally), and proving that the two countries are still best allies...
Lukashenko is generally derided for “sitting on two chairs” playing Europe against Russia (while acknowledging his impressive ability to do so for so many years). He also carried the country through the post-Soviet trouble period much better than most other former republics, for which he gets some respect.
Note that he has firmly purged the government of pro-Russian politicians over the years so there are no illusions about his friendship.
I don't think that there's a singular view to Belarus.
Russia needs the countries on its European border. It is completely exposed militarily - flat lands leading all the way to its heartland routinely used by invaders. It already has two NATO countries on its border and another country (Ukraine) that has asked to join. The last thing it needs is a wall of NATO countries pressed up against its jugular.
Having Belarus on side is critical for them.
Nobody, that's who.
I'll tell you what Putin's really afraid of. He's afraid of Russians figuring out that the people in the USSR who wound up aligned with the west are better off than the people who are under Putin. He's afraid of that reality creeping too close to his borders.
(Now, in fairness, it was absolutely absurd that France would invade Russia... until it happened. But if Putin wants buffers big enough to prevent that from happening, then he's going to need to control both Germany and France. There are no buffers big enough to disarm Russia's fears, unless you give them at least all of Europe. And maybe you'd have to give them the whole planet.)
NATO isn't an invading force, of course and is purely a defensive pact which is why they occupied Afghanistan.
Still, my point stands: Is NATO going to invade Russia, using that favorable geography? No. Absolutely not. Zero chance. No NATO country has the stomach for a war of mass casualties, and nobody is stupid enough to think that an invasion of Russia would be anything else.
(The good news is that, after Afghanistan, I don't think that Russia has the stomach for a war of mass casualties, either, and Putin knows it. So he plays games with "little green men" and the Wagner Group, but I don't think he can go much further than that. China concerns me more - I fear that at the moment, maybe they do have the stomach for it, and the temptation to try because they doubt that anyone else has the will to fight enough to give China that kind of casualties.)
Isn’t it the US that constantly invades and occupies countries, not the other way around? It’s the US I fear, it already has bases all over my country.
The whole point of the ratchet games in Eastern Europe is to make it incrementally easier until it becomes a more realistic plan. NATO probably won't have a problem edging further towards Moscow for 70 more years and Moscow will try to stymie them every step of the way.
Once it becomes realistic and winnable there's a good chance they won't need to fight. Russia would likely flip to becoming a client state of the US of its own accord. That is likely the NATO endgame - a series of puppets like Yeltsin in power for good with the labor/natural resource markets opened up for exploitation to American megacorporations, no significant industrial base of its own and a very limited military capacity.
How soon do you think Russia is going to leave the Ukraine? Ever? Are they going to take more if they get the chance? Hard to prove, but it seems likely.
So really, who's playing the ratchet game?
That all happened before the Russian/Georgian war. It followed a similar pattern to many other post Soviet Republics as well as a lot of Latin America.
Russia will leave Ukraine alone if there is somebody friendly to them in power. If not then probably not.
Plus, which adjoining country was Afghanistan invaded from, such that a larger buffer would have helped?
Afghanistan was poor and the government was militarily weak, though, which I guess is why the US figured they could execute a successful military invasion in spite of the geographical unfavorability.
Osama was definitely on to something when he baited the US into a war there. He said the war would be protracted, costly, deadly and unwinnable. $2.5 trillion down the drain and 4,000 deaths later and nothing to show for it - he was right.
The US decided that evidence was not required (& didn't really have any anyway at that point) and invaded.
These are not the actions of a defensive pact acting defensively. They're the act of a country with bloodlust.
They didn't supply troops to Ukraine cos they don't want a direct fight with another nuclear power. This was a defining feature of the cold war. That's why it was called "cold". What makes you think this time is different?
It's much lower risk and much cheaper to play the long game and stir up ethnic tensions along exposed borders and foment ethnic and cultural splits. This being famously effective at building and sustaining the British Empire and also something Russia is trying to do to the US with social media, although with limited success beyond sparking thanksgiving arguments.
You are right, the NATO didn't support the Ukraine with military equipment or even troups, despite of the treaty, because of the fear of things going nuclear. That is also the reason any allegations about the NATO attacking Russia is pure sillyness.
The only "danger" for Russia, or rather Putin, is, that more and more countries want to be independant, especially for improving economic ties to the west, as this brings economic prosperity. It is tragic, how the enourmeous wealth of Russia, thanks to its oil and gas, was wasted for fancy yachts instead of boosting the industrial upbuild of the country.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B1%D0%B8...
https://en.public-welfare.com/4135353-quotbomb-voronezhquot-...
So there is the global economic game, and then there is the global political game. All we ever talk about in media is the political game since it's easy to digest in sound bites, but the economics are running the real decision process as much as the politics.
[edit] My bad. Said rubbish. Apparently my understanding of this word is different from the common.
You might’ve been getting mixed up with the word “withdraw”, which means essentially what you described (to revoke, or to take away).
I saw a televised meeting between Putin and Lukashenko yesterday that ended with Lukashenko making the statement that went something like "the Bolsheviks rose to great heights, and we will match them", to which Putin chuckled, demurely. Its maybe not obvious to Westerners, but they are trying to rebuild a "Union of ex-Soviet States" in the region these days .. one by one, preparing a Bloc that can be an attractive partner to the EU, I suppose.
With these kinds of tit-for-tat responses, though, I guess its a shrewd strategy. "If we are allowed into the EU econo-bloc, such re-routes won't be necessary", seems to be the planned negotiating point ..
This is a cogent observation.
Putin has stated multiple times that he intends to have better relations with the EU, and that the Commonwealth of Independent States needs to work towards that goal, so .. I'm guessing you're not paying attention to that, since it doesn't serve the narrative that Russia just wants to 'go it alone against the world'.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/putin-sa...
No, it wouldn't be good for the USA, but it would be great for Europeans and Russians to see this happen some day.
Russia would be a perfectly fine partner with the EU, and it seems to be orienting towards that goal in a future date - American agitprop notwithstanding.
It takes a certain kind of disingenuous authoritarianism to claim that Russia is committing heinous acts which preclude its participation in the world order, when the majority of the world order is just fine with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and extrajudicial assassinations being performed for the criminal purposes of the "Coalition of the Willing".
Fair enough if you want to criticize Russia for being a kleptocracy that assassinates enemies on foreign soil, but diversion of flights to capture enemies of the state and then not treating them well in captivity is unfortunately not a hallmark of totalitarian regimes but a general feature of western statecraft as well, so let's not blow this tit-for-tat response out of proportion.
Practically I view the fly over ban as protecting passengers and property from being unduly seized by Belarus.
Since Belarus and Russia have close ties flying a plane into Russia at all seems about the same risk as flying that plane over and into Belarus.
Isn't that great? We're not going to allow non-democratic countries like Russia into the EU. Certainly not when they are so clearly documenting that they have zero credibility, no treaty Russia signs can be trusted. So it's probably fine that they make own club.
I mean what else would we expect them to do?