Iran had also contributed significantly in 2020. Although their regime ended up acknowledging their role, unlike Russia whose policy is bold faced lies.
Russia is very different: Putin clearly has absolute control over all government entities.
I’m surprised they were able to shoot a plane down at all.
I wasn’t precise enough. He does not control every individual specifically, just all organisations (as in, there is none that dares to contradict him, and the people in charge who do, don’t do it for long).
That’s a consequence of the power structure. It is optimised to avoid factions and keeping dissenting voices under control, but micromanagement has its limits. To some extent, corruption also helps in several ways at the highest levels. This seems to be one of the reasons why they cannot stop it. It enables selective enforcement, and is an effective tool to get rid of people who get too powerful, too independent, or not obedient enough (there are many examples of this in the last couple of years: when Putin wants to reshuffle the government he finds corruption charges). It seems that this culture spread down the ranks and pervades the whole state.
> I’m surprised they were able to shoot a plane down at all.
If anything, a civilian aircraft is a sitting duck for anti-aircraft missiles: it has no decoys, no flares, no jamming or any kind of countermeasures. Surely, not shooting it down when firing at it takes some effort. Also, we don’t know how many missiles were fired.
The US shooting down that airliner is also mentioned in that WSJ article that this thread is about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines...
No one can rationally argue that that was partly the US' responsibility, though.
The Iranians shot down a Ukrainian jet with Russian missile. Blaming Americans for the stupidity of Iranians is ridiculous.
Iran shot down this airliner after mistaking it for a cruise missile launched by the US, which was arguably a credible fear given the events of days prior. If the US didn't assassinate Qasem Soleimani (with a drone, near an airport), Iran wouldn't have made this terrible error, as they would not have made a retaliatory strike.
Additionally, you can go even further back and argue that if the US didn't withdraw from the nuclear deal struck in 2015, none of these events would have taken place.
Saying "there were other critical factors" both agrees with the parent post and doesn't counter the idea that the US was a factor.
Stop treating blame like it's some simple, single element. It's a complicated, multi faceted chain of events.
No, there isn't. There's a direct causative path initiated by Xerxes I when he launched the second invasion of Greece.
It's not the 1950s anymore, accountable nations are expected on the international stage to understand what exactly they are shooting at. Israel is under much closer scrutiny than Russia because they represent modernized doctrine and should be using their technological superiority to enable more targeted strikes rather than more indiscriminate ones. Modern Russian warfighting tactics have been under serious scrutiny since the Afghan retreat, then again in the Gulf War, and then again now during the retreat from Syria.
The only "clean" war Russia fought in recent years was Crimea, which was "won" by lying to the international community and breaking their trust forever. As evidenced by Ukraine, today's Russian republic cannot win a war with tactical prowess alone. The "special military operation" has devolved into IRBM fearmongering and rattling the nuclear sabre - Putin knows he's not the president of a world superpower anymore, he's a Tesco-branded Kim Jong-Un.