Peter wrote:
Aircraft-leasing companies working out how to recall billions of dollars of airplanes from Russia
Seeing what alledgedly happened to the AN225, they won’t be the only ones. Also in Kiew there are some airliners stranded which are likely destroyed by now, possibly the whole Antonov Factory can go down too. If the Russians find themselves thrown out, they may well try to leave behind burnt earth. Not least to consider is the state of Chernobyl. If the Russians decide to blow it up or to damage it, implications for Kiew and the surrounding area may well be horrible, not to speak of what it would do for large chunks of Europe too.
Please don’t click on the link below without first reading this. It contains graphic content that you might well find very upsetting.
I’m man enough to be able to admit it moved me to tears. Maybe I’m more susceptible than others, given that I’ve a young daughter just 2 years younger, who also loves unicorns.
It’s a news story (carried in a reputable major Irish newspaper) about a 6 year old girl who was killed while she slept in her unicorn PJs, by a Russian strike.
I thought a lot before posting this. It’s not aviation content and it is graphic and upsetting in nature. But as the doctor in the story said “Show this to Putin”. Of course Putin will never see it nor care, but the more publicity such stories get the more the people of Russia get to see what is being done to innocent people, and young children, in their name.
Peter – If you feel this is too inappropriate for the forum, I totally understand.
Peter wrote:
It was said that if you ended up in a lift at Apple’s HQ with Steve Jobs, you could not be sure if you still had your job by the time one of you got out of the lift.
At least Steve Jobs couldn’t have you sent to Siberia and/or killed.
These negotiations going on in Minsk are potentially dangerous.
From the Ukrainian perspective, surely they cannot accept anything less than a cease-fire and a full withdrawal by the Russians. Even that carries risk, as the Russians will doubtless re-group and come up with a different plan.
Agreeing to just a cease-fire would be disastrous and would benefit the Russians more than anyone. It is horrible to have to say that – especially in light of what @dublinpilot has just posted – but Putin’s regime is under the cosh now, militarily and economically, and the last thing anyone should do is let up and give them breathing space.
Apart from anything else, it’s difficult to see how you can have a meaningful negotiation unless there is some degree of trust that the other side is acting in good faith, and we all know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Putin acts in bad faith. He isn’t going to suddenly become trustworthy because his armed forces got a bloody nose.
The west (and Ukraine) have started down a particular path now, and it can only end with Putin’s death or him being deposed. If you just slap his wrists and send his army home, what do you think happens next? Some chap wrote in the Guardian a few days back that we need to dig in for the long haul here – the problem in the past has been that we’ve started dealing with Putin firmly before, but then we get a change of government (the case in point was Obama being elected) which wants to ‘reset relations’.
alioth wrote:
At least Steve Jobs couldn’t have you sent to Siberia and/or killed.
But the point was the same. It meant no-one ever told him anything he didn’t want to hear.
Perhaps it has happened now. Perhaps Putin genuinely thought the Ukranian people would welcome his forces, because that’s what he was told by some minister or general who was too scared to tell the truth.
I hope this doesn’t go the way of the 10,000 post CV19 thread… people really need to get back to aviation discussion 
Perhaps it needs to be carved off into its own thread?
Peter wrote:
people really need to get back to aviation discussion
O.K. here we go: where would you fl(y)/(ee) if Poland or one of the other neighbours gets nuked? Have you already filled up your tanks?
Perhaps it needs to be carved off into its own thread?
The problem is that, unlike CV19, this has zero impact on GA – unless there is a “WW3” and then everything is grounded.
where would you fl(y)/(ee) if Poland or one of the other neighbours gets nuked?
Prob99 GA will be instantly banned in Poland if there is any attack on Poland. They can’t allow the enemy to be checking out the place in GA planes. Same as happened in WW2.
Peter wrote:
Prob99 GA will be instantly banned in Poland if there is any attack on Poland
Yes of course, but a nuclear attack is about radiation and this does not halt at the border. So to reduce exposure it might be interesting to get moving even if you are 500 kilometers away from ground zero.
