Even Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed by surrogate forces offering a certain amount of deniability.
Was that actually confirmed somewhere? It’s not that easy to train people to use the AA system and IIRC they shot down plane within days of the system arrival in Ukraine, which would suggest that it was controlled by russian forces.
No. You’re right. I should have typed “surrogate forces” in quotations or ‘supposed surrogate forces’ or something. Point being, at the time and for a few news cycles after there was a story used to interject and/or some attempt to introduce uncertainty. That story was bullshit, it was even pretty obvious at the time, but they tried. This is much more cut and dry. That Putin wanted to send a message is obvious, but there was no concern this time about that message being too loud or it sending warning signals to unintended targets.
This could spook business from returning, as mentioned by another response below. This could have knock on effects. Putin didn’t even try to act like he cared about any of that. That could mean a lot of things. I don’t think any of them are good.
I feel like putin is just trying to put off the biggest fire at the moment. Any knock on effects are problems to be dealt by future putin. (or someone else) He’s losing control and usual flight from the 15th story window (remember, there were many of those recently) is no longer cutting it so he needed to send a stronger message even if it means future problems.
Was that actually confirmed somewhere? It’s not that easy to train people to use the AA system and IIRC they shot down plane within days of the system arrival in Ukraine, which would suggest that it was controlled by russian forces.
The Dutch investigation was pretty conclusive, with the call recordings and such. A lot of rebels were Russian vacationers, though.
No. You’re right. I should have typed “surrogate forces” in quotations or ‘supposed surrogate forces’ or something. Point being, at the time and for a few news cycles after there was a story used to interject and/or some attempt to introduce uncertainty. That story was bullshit, it was even pretty obvious at the time, but they tried. This is much more cut and dry. That Putin wanted to send a message is obvious, but there was no concern this time about that message being too loud or it sending warning signals to unintended targets.
This could spook business from returning, as mentioned by another response below. This could have knock on effects. Putin didn’t even try to act like he cared about any of that. That could mean a lot of things. I don’t think any of them are good.
I feel like putin is just trying to put off the biggest fire at the moment. Any knock on effects are problems to be dealt by future putin. (or someone else) He’s losing control and usual flight from the 15th story window (remember, there were many of those recently) is no longer cutting it so he needed to send a stronger message even if it means future problems.