Ukraine says Russia fired at Belarus from Ukrainian airspace to drag it into war

Outraged EU imposed sanctions on Belarus, who was forced then to turn to Russia for support.

Now Russia is calling the favor back and forcing him to send troops to Ukraine, which he doesn't want, both because it's a very unpopular move in Belarus, and also because it's pretty clear now that he'll incur heavy losses.

Lukashenko never wanted to be a Russia puppet, but it's funny how his decision to arrest a dissident at any cost basically lead to his country annexation by Russia, which he tried to prevent for 30 years.

Now there are a few more pieces to this story, like the previous elections in Belarus that he blatantly stole, and the fact that Russia was going to submit Belarus one way or the other anyway, but the fact remains that that one small decision greatly accelerated the process. Butterfly effect.

See also "Defections and resignations in Belarusian military prevented country from joining Ukraine invasion'" https://www.israelhayom.com/2022/03/07/defections-and-resign...

I've heard about a million "Russia plans to do X false flag operation" announcements in the last couple of weeks, all of which would be largely to the detriment of Russia, both in terms of causing it damage directly, as well as by giving ample provocation to its enemies (and even its 'friends') to justify any retaliation thinkable under the sun. And then I've seen posts showing victims in certain popular photos were paid actors. At this point it would be simpler for Ukraine to promote these stories and then go do them themselves. But then again, maybe that's the narrative Russia hopes to rely on, so they're promoting these stories themselves as some sort of "double bluff"? Except, the narrative isn't really important because nobody in the west has access to it anyway, and if anything people are being told that Russia sucks and can't even do a "single bluff" properly in the first place? Unless that's a triple bluff? Who knows. This is starting to have more levels of recursion than "Inception".

It reminds me a bit of that old joke. There's an attractive woman sitting in a train cabin. Next to her is a Russian man, and opposite both of them sits an American man (arbitrary nationalities chosen for the joke). Suddenly the train goes through a dark tunnel. In the middle of the darkness, a loud "slap" is heard. As the train comes out of the tunnel, the woman is surprised to see the American in front of her holding his cheek in pain, with a visible slap-mark. The woman thinks "What probably happened was that that filthy American tried to fondle me as we went through the tunnel, and must have fondled the Russian guy instead by accident, so he slapped him". The American thinks, "That filthy Russian must have tried to fondle the poor girl from the side as we went through the tunnel, and she must have thought it was me from the front instead, and slapped me". The Russian thinks "That was awesome. I can't wait for the next tunnel!"