Worth noting in all of this that Belarus recently closed their land borders to citizens [1], under the guise of COVID, but in reality to stop people leaving. The only way out was flying from Minsk, which is now even less of an option if there are no flights to the EU.
As others have said these sanctions will likely do more to harm the repressed citizens of the regime than Lukashenko
People (me and friends) reroute their travel through Moscow to get to Minsk now. Annoying but still i believe that this is a right decision from eu side.
just out of curiosity, are you worried that posts such as this one could land you in trouble at some point? or are you taking steps like using a VPN for this?
I am living outside of Belarus right now in a country with decent government, so i don't really worry about this. But ofc i use my own wireguard vpn and mtproto proxy for telegram when i am traveling to Belarus. I am not going to censor myself, but it pays to be cautious.
As proven by the fact that a regime critic just caused a plane to be diverted, living outside of Belarus is by itself unfortunately no longer a guarantee for safety. So please be very careful.
I am a nobody, Raman was a prominent opposition figure even before aug 2020 and ex-editor of NEXTA (biggest belarusian opposition channel on tg). He was arrested because of his relation to NEXTA. Me? I am just a dude, who works\lives abroad and has to deal with shit that my beloved leader pulls off.
Reason why people in Belarus are getting arrested for stuff like commenting/posting, is because they leave their bio\phone number\sensitive stuff open or do it on socials that are working with cops (viber, vk, whatsapp etc). HN is perfect because you can use 5 minute mail to create an account. Regular cops wont be able to dox you unless they have your phone. It is very different if you got attention from KGB or other dudes. But you have to be prominent enough to do that.
And finally. I can post/comment on HN as much as i want because HN is very far from being of any interest to cops. Small site, most days purely tech themed, that is 100% in english.
I've checked again, and most posts about fines\arrests that i was able to find were related to screenshots of groupchats, and no data requests were done to whatsapp itself. My bad.
Viber worked actively with cops while their head office was in Minsk, even after Rakuten acquisition.
VK, and other companies that are located in Russia, especially those that are owned by mail.ru group, are actively working with cops.
While it may vary by the government or jurisdiction in question, whatsapp is definitely compromised at the LE/Judicial level in some places. This leads me to believe that in fact it is universally compromised, though I have no direct evidence to support that conclusion.
Russia has murdered dissidents multiple times in foreign capitals in plain view (resulting in other civilian deaths) most recently the Novichok murders. They don't care about what the west thinks and likely approved this operation too.
That's not true actually. Not a fan of the modern Russia but a fan of accuracy. That plane was shot down by rebel Donbass forces by mistake. They were not well trained and mistook it for a military plane.
Good question. Who knows, all I know is that it is time to really de-escalate relations between the big power blocks. At the same time Western democracies have to put limits on what totalitarian regimes, true and wannabe ones, are allowed to get away with. These things seem to be mutually exclusive so. I always thought the Putin is the most dangerous and cunning leader the world currently has. I also thought that this cunning would prevent him from doing anything stupid. Not so sure anymore about the last bit anymore, given with what he got away with so far.
Don't ask me what Western powers should do so. Given the loss in soft power in the last decade, throwing out human rights by the EU during the refugee crisis and ever since, the new alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Trumps foreign policy, options seem to be limited.
Nobody is going to ban Russia. Look at the map. How do you think they'd fly between EU and China/Japan? Over Russian territory. Case closed, even not talking about nukes and stuff, just on economic reasons. For heaven's sake, they are finishing a major gas pipeline between Russia and Germany (look up North Stream 2), what bans could there be? Russia is not Belarus (even though Belarus is definitely a puppet of Russia) and EU would not dare to go as far, however nice it would sound. And Putin knows that very well.
"As others have said these sanctions will likely do more to harm the repressed citizens of the regime than the Lukashenko"
I feel that that is true for almost all sanctions everywhere sadly. The Russians love their children too. In fact we have to really think hard on who they benefit, short and long term. Making markets more independent of each other is only making a war more likely. If goods don't cross borders armies will.
What is a better alternative? I don't know, but perhaps targeted educational pieces, like scientific papers to educate populations? Yeah it sounds like propaganda, but perhaps one can add methods to verify claims or something? Show how exactly a policy is detrimental to the population in question? It's a hard problem, I'm not claiming otherwise.
Bomb one of their airbases. Russia can annex Crimea with no real response, so why should the EU show restraint? (I am not suggesting a bombing campaign, just a targeted strike on the airbase from which the intercepting fighter jet departed.) What’s Russia going to do? They want that Nord Stream pipeline. They aren’t going to militarily respond over some two bit dictator, even one friendly to Russia. The Nord Stream energy revenue is probably going to be much higher than the entire Belorussian economy.
I'd like to see a worldwide agreement that no country will ever stop a citizen from leaving, as long as they have permission to enter another country.
Even if the person is in prison or debt, they can always leave with just themselves to another country willing to take them.
If all nations agreed to that, we could stop worrying about most other human rights abuses, and country governance becomes more of a free market. If you don't like your own system of government, you can move to another. Countries would have an incentive to treat their people well, or see a mass exodus.
>I'd like to see a worldwide agreement that no country will ever stop a citizen from leaving, as long as they have permission to enter another country.
It's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 13 Section 2:
>Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Of course, it's not clear how much legal force the UDHR has.
> Of course, it's not clear how much legal force the UDHR has.
Depending on the jurisdiction. It has a lot of legal force in countries that are members of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR; violations go to that court if they are not satisified by local courts or other means of member states; member states usually respect the Court's decisions). Belarus applied for membership in 1993 but was never admitted, because well I think it's clear why.
They won't enforce it, they won't even say anything. Upon request they'll even hand over the names of people of interest to regimes that wish to execute or torture innocent people. See the UNHRs response to handing over names of Uighurs.
When you're talking about exit bans, that's something China is known for, and it's gotten bad enough that the US State Department mentions it. (That was a long time coming)
In Australia, it's currently a crime for citizens to leave without a permit. The system for permits is quite arbitrary, with some reporting approvals in minutes, and others reporting rejections without reason.
It is worth noting that a recent survey showed a vast majority of Australians preferring closed borders as we have been relatively unscathed from COVID.
>these rules are there to protect the minority, not the majority.
That's not clear.
Democracy protects the majority (but not always the minority); in an absence of democracy, the majority are also vulnerable to breaches of human rights.
> In Australia, it's currently a crime for citizens to leave without a permit.
As long as a country allows a citizen to leave, it doesn't matter if it's also against local laws. It simply means that the person should expect punishment if they were to ever return.
Currently, the quarantine system for returning residents is entirely overloaded. Leakage of cases from quarantine has been common, leading to snap lockdowns.
Additionally, there aren’t many commercial flights right now, resulting in the government needing to supplement these with charter flights (but needing to balance this with not further overloading quarantine facilities). Some people have been waiting six months or more to find a flight home or to get onto a charter flight. There are constant news stories about desperate people who are trapped with no way to fly back.
So, the government has decided you need a permit to leave, either stating you have no intention to return in the medium-term, need to leave for compassionate reasons, or have an urgent need to travel.
I entirely disagree with the policy. People should be free to leave, but then if they can’t find a flight home, that’s their issue.
However, the government seems concerned about the optics of seeing people on the nightly news, crying that the government won’t give them a seat on a charter flight.
Depends on cultural differences and their qualification.
For example basically noone complains about Ukrainian/Belarusian programmers working in Poland.
There is quite significant presence of Ukrainians in Poland and it is widely accepted and so far no major problems happened.
> On 14 September 2018, 33,624 Ukrainian citizens possessed a permanent residence permit, and 132,099 had a temporary residence permit.[4] About 1 to 2 million Ukrainian citizens are working in Poland.[5][6] There are also 40,000 Ukrainian students in Poland.[6]
How are you defining "economic refugee"? Lots of countries benefit from people coming to that country to work. In many cases, those people end up as net contributors to the public purse; the individual is better off, the recipient country is better off.
There are a few countries who will pretty much let anybody in. Migrants often bring with them skills that the locals don't have, and in any mass migration, those who migrate (vs stay where they are) tend to be the fitter, smarter, richer people.
The main reason not to take migrants is you might see substantial economic losses as migrants send income back home to support family. You might alienate your existing population with conflicting cultures. And with enough immigration, the migrants might eventually outnumber the original population and persecute them (eg. indian reservations).
It's all a tradeoff, but I suspect there always a few countries worldwide who will take anyone.
Canada has pretty high standards though. You need some combination of language proficiency, education, skills, youth, health, and wealth.
There are countries that will let "anybody" in. There are countries that take large numbers of immigrants. I seriously doubt there are countries that do both.
> in any mass migration, those who migrate (vs stay where they are) tend to be the fitter, smarter, richer people.
Completely not true. Look at the migrations to the EU, as well as to the US. The “smarter, fitter, richer” people aren’t mass migrating from Latin America. Not at any significant percentage at least.
Obviously they might not be smarter, fitter and richer than people at the place they're arriving at, and that is one of the major reasons immigration is often restricted.
> The “smarter, fitter, richer” people aren’t mass migrating from Latin America
Not mass migrating but it isn't completely untrue either here in the EU, I keep meeting other Latin Americans like me who emigrated away and plan to never come back. It has only grown the past 5 years, of course I'm in a bubble of tech workers but most of the engineers I know who got a job in the EU from Latin America are some of the smartest and richer ones.
you might see substantial economic losses as migrants send income back home to support family.
Is that a real problem? Assume they get paid in local currency (e.g. US dollars).
Option one; they buy a foreign currency with those US dollars, and send that foreign currency overseas. The dollars stay in the US and get spent.
Option two, they send those US dollars overseas; those US dollars ultimately either come back to the US to be spent (in which case the fact that they circled around the world matters as much as if they sat in a wallet in Utah for a year), or they never come back and the US is ahead on the deal, given that the worker did some work but US society will never need to hand over goods/services in exchange.
I guess my hypothesis is that either those US dollars get spent in the US, or they don't. If they do, it's just like a non-migrant worker. If they don't, US society got work done and didn't have to give back goods/services - bargain for US society.
A currency exchange is a zero sum transaction. Whether it is US dollars or Philippine pesos makes no difference, the value stayed in-country.
When it gets sent overseas, it leaves the country and is spent elsewhere, so that is a loss in value for the originating country. The only value remaining would be whatever fee was charged on its way out.
If the US prints a million dollars, and some does a million dollars' worth of work in the US (or someone outside the US sends over a shipload of electronics in exchange for that big back of dollars) and moves that million dollars overseas, and those dollars never come back to be spent in the US, the US has gained. The US got a whole lot of work done, and did not have to give anyone goods or services in exchange.
The US has been doing this with a trade deficit for decades; giving people paper (or just numbers), which the US can make almost for free, in exchange for actual goods and services which people overseas happily send to the US. A trade deficit is free stuff. It's only a problem if the holder of all that paper comes back some day to spend it.
"When it gets sent overseas, it leaves the country and is spent elsewhere, so that is a loss in value for the originating country."
What value? The US did not give anyone goods or services, no goods from the US were transported to another country. What value was lost to the US? In the future, someone might come back with those dollars and exchange them for goods and services which they move outside the US. That would be a loss of value for the US, watching real goods and services go overseas.
I disagree. A lot of the US dollars that are held outside the US seem to be held not with an intention of spending them in the US, but out of trust that everyone will always agree they're valuable.
USD has inherent value* because it can be exchanged for goods, property, and services in the US. Or to pay US taxes. The US has a lot of goods, property, and services that people want. US taxes are not a consideration for most people outside the US.
*Since most global trade is denominated in USD, and many countries use USD as their official currency, it can also be used to pay for goods, property, and services outside the US. But arguably it wouldn't have this global status if the US itself didn't have valuable goods, property, and services.
> If they do, it's just like a non-migrant worker.
It isn't quite. Imagine dollars leave the US, get sent to Nigeria, and eventually return to the US to buy some music.
Compare that to the case where the dollars do not get sent to Nigeria, but remain in the US.
In the latter case, the Nigerian person wanting their music needs to find another source for the dollars to buy their music. That in turn makes the dollar more valuable, and reduces Nigerias buying power for US products and services.
Imagine dollars leave the US, get sent to Nigeria, and eventually return to the US to buy some music.
I'm definitely on board with the idea that if those dollars never return to the US, then the US effectively got free labour (which is why a trade deficit, I often suggest, isn't automatically a bad thing - it's free stuff, at least until the dollars all come back!), which is quite a win for the US, and given that of all dollars sent overseas, some will never come back, the US has a steady supply of free labour purely because migrant workers are sending dollars overseas (which sure feels like a win for the US).
So the only "downside" for the US is if those dollars sent overseas do eventually make their way back and buy something; at that point the US is handing over goods and services in exchange for that original work done by the migrant worker. Not so much a downside as a delayed fair exchange.
Let me just think out loud for a moment; sending the US dollars to our Nigerian chum, and him returning them to the US in exchange for something, is the same (barring people skiming off the top and postage etc.) as our migrant worker just buying something and posting that to the Nigerian chum. So I think I agree with what you say, but I hypothesise it's not making the US any worse off than the money not making that round trip and just being spent on goods/services in the US by the migrant worker (barring postage etc).
NOT sending the US dollars to our Nigerian chum, and him needing to source US dollars from somewhere else, does make the US dollar a tiny bit more valuable as there is a tiny increased demand for it. Whether that's a good or bad thing for the US, I couldn't say, but if the US dollar becomes too expensive, US exports go down. At this point I guess we're heading into second-order effects of what happens when US exports become too expensive, and I wouldn't like to run into that right now.
It is one. The majority of migrants, qualified or not, have a hard time getting work permits. Finding work, low paid but paid, isn't the main challenge. Doesn't do any good if you aren't allowed to take that work so.
Also, our social systems are doing well. Thanks for worrying.
If you include pension systems, not so much. "Altersarmut" ("poverty of the old age") was not a widely used word in the 1990s, now it is a frequent topic in German media.
In many other European countries, old people live in their own properties with mortgages long paid off, so they aren't directly touched by rent increases. But Germans, for some reason, mostly like to live in rented flats and have a comparatively low home ownership rate, even in their old age. And the rents have grown quite a lot in big German cities. This means quite a squeeze for the elderly.
True. And we have Hartz IV, a national shame in my opinion. My point to OP was that, besides these facts, our social system is nowhere near to collapsing. No matter how many refugees we take in. That we as a nation, and that includes myself through our representative democracy, are ok with poor and old people being squeezed out of living space by rent seeking investors and treating people under Hartz IV as second class citizens is a different story. But we have elections in September, so there is a chance to shake things up a little bit.
Uh, anyone can make an asylum claim. An asylum claim is basically a plea to not be deported. It is usually a last ditch tactic when you are caught on US soil illegally, and you are not disputing that you are here illegally but are making a plea that you should not be returned anyway. It was a law introduced to aid Cuban boat refugees who were unable to apply for refugee visas and so always came here illegally.
The question is what are the grounds that would make such a plea legally successful, and being an economic refugee is not one of them. So while you are correct that economic refugees can make the claim, you are incorrect in that such a claim would succeed. People with red hair can also make the claim. Anyone can make the claim.
Which would become an one-way route, because once a nation has become a criminal-refugee paradise, why would third countries accept them travelling to their shores?
> Russia would assassinate people and the assassins would have safe travel home.
They already largely do. Also, in many countries that have experienced illiberal trends recently, they can still get you emigrated abroad and they still have power over you abroad.
As the journalist Sarah Kendzior says “This is a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government.”
To win something like this, it is better that large amounts of people who can stay be able to as long as feasibly possible. Once people leave en masse (sometimes there is no choice) the situation only gets uglier. But you do absolutely have to know when to leave.
You are missing the point that none of these happened without the criminal taking the risk that they would be caught before escaping the country where the crime occured.
The proposal is to make the law change so these are risk-free crimes. The law would not be a deterent to commiting crimes.
The fun thing about this proposal is when people say they want "countries to compete" they are often pushing for a market solution for the rich to get richer. But in this case it would hurt rich and poor alike. Jeff Bezos has little to gain from american law to be optional for americans and anyone to be able to murder him and opt out of the law by leaving the country.
> Holding China accountable would solve 70% of human rights abuses.
Do you mean that "70% of human rights abuses" in china or worldwide? And if worldwide, do you think the 70% of human rights absuses happen in china or that other nations will stop based on the fear of consequences?
Right now my first impression was that you claim that 70% of all human rights abuses happen in china, which, to me, seems like it is very very wrong. But that would be an uncharitable reading, so I'd be interested in if I get it wrong.
Always assume the more charitable interpretation. I think the person was just being hyperbolic, and used "70%" to mean "a lot". Pedantic squabbling over the exact number of something that is essentially unknowable is not particularly helpful to anyone except for the human rights abusers.
With that out of the way: I do think that if there were a mechanism in place that was sufficient to hold a huge state such as China accountable, it actually would have a significant impact on worldwide human rights abuses. If China was not able to get around this, what options would smaller tin-pot dictators have other than to reform?
Proving to the world that the rules apply regardless of relative size/importance has significant downstream effects beyond the single entity that is brought down for noncompliance with those rules. Likewise, the visible lack of required accountability for large players undermines faith in the system and encourages smaller players to see what they can get away with.
I'd love to see something like this as well, but it's not going to happen as long as so many people and/or their governments don't like large influxes of people.
> As others have said these sanctions will likely do more to harm the repressed citizens of the regime than Lukashenko
There are simply too many repressed citizens for them to all flee, so allowing some to flee might be just unfair, and also counterproductive because then you are left with only underpriviledged and repressed citizens.
They could still fly to Russia or Ukraine and then cross the land border into an EU country. Maybe Ukraine would follow suit though, they can benefit from better relations with the EU.
"- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;"
decision has still to be made by the council, and then - to my understanding - implemented by all member states one by one. It's a typical example of media interpretation of facts.
The decision is taken. You are misunderstanding what you are reading.
The press release follows an urgent meeting from the Council. The Council is the reunion of all the EU heads of state. They have already agreed to the ban. The sentence you are quoting just means that they now have to pass the corresponding executive orders in their respective countries which, as you are rightfully pointing, has already been done by France.
Obviously the decision has to be implemented by all member states one by one. That's how the EU works. It's the case for every decision taken and law passed by the EU.
> That's how the EU works. It's the case for every decision taken and law passed by the EU.
Not exactly. It depends on the area of law one is in.
For some areas of law the EU itself can create law in itself which immediately becomes law in the member states, overriding member state's laws (typically via EU Regulation)
But this works only in areas where EU contracts give those powers to EU.
Of course this then still depends on execution by the member states, but it is a law and affected citizens can sue accordingly if a member doesn't execute.
Air control is related to defense etc. and is not such an area, thus EU's powers are limited and individual member states have to agree according to their individual legal frameworks.
That's true - it's also worth explicitly noting that when the EU does make law directly, that is still done in a fully democratic way.
The fact that that EU laws can override national laws does not mean that the EU Commission has unilaterally imposed law without consent. Law changes must first must be approved by the Council - comprising heads of state - and then by the EU parliament, consisting of directly elected representatives from all member states.
I know you weren't asserting otherwise - I just wanted to provide additional important context for those who wouldn't otherwise be aware.
It becomes quite complex, but any system, which tries to bring more than 400M oppionons together, while giving a voice to minorities and dealing with complicated issues is inherently complex.
To me, full democracy just means a democratic system which enjoys the consent of the majority of the people. It could be parliamentary, presidential, proportional representation, direct democracy, whatever. I don't think outsiders or third parties have a right to decide whether a system of rule that enjoys the support of the people 'counts' or not.
That's entirely independent of my view that direct democracy is a terrible mistake because it decouples responsibility for making a decision from responsibility for implementing it *. However, if you can persuade a population that it's right for them, then fine.
* We can see this with the Brexit referendum. For 2 years the UK had a government and parliament that didn't want to leave the EU responsible for implementing legislation and a treaty to leave it. The result was political paralysis. Fortunately we now have a government aligned with the goal, but that's just pure luck.
> * We can see this with the Brexit referendum. For 2 years the UK had a government and parliament that didn't want to leave the EU responsible for implementing legislation and a treaty to leave it. The result was political paralysis. Fortunately we now have a government aligned with the goal, but that's just pure luck.
That's not entirely accurate. Theresa May called a snap election within a year (explicitly on the basis of building a stronger base to achieve Brexit) that resulted in a lessened majority for the pro-Brexit faction. The paralysis in Brexit was caused by the question of where the customs border would lie in a Brexit world: on the Irish island (jeopardizing the Good Friday Agreement), in the Irish Sea (jeopardizing the UK), or around Great Britain as well (negating most of the point of Brexit), on which point the British government effectively refused to provide an answer until almost the last possible moment.
That's quite right, this is the trickiest issue. However if Brexit had been decided in the usual way then responsibility for addressing and resolving that issue would have been clear. So a party would have put Brexit in their manifesto, campaigned on the issue of delivering Brexit, and perhaps held a referendum to double-guarantee they had a solid mandate to do it. This is the exact process we followed to join 'Europe' in the first place, after all.
Instead the May government utterly collapsed the moment it got anywhere close to actually delivering anything. We're very, very lucky that Boris ended up leading the Conservative Party on a deliver Brexit platform and got a solid majority.
And I say this as a dedicated, thoroughgoing Remainer that will never forgive Boris for his sheer political opportunism over Brexit in the first place. But still. My attitude is, we eventually did have an election on the issue and a government committed to the goal, so let's get on and do it, and get it over with.
> The press release follows an urgent meeting from the Council. The Council is the reunion of all the EU heads of state. They have already agreed to the ban. The sentence you are quoting just means that they now have to pass the corresponding executive orders in their respective countries which, as you are rightfully pointing, has already been done by France.
That's not what the quoted sentence ("calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines") means. The quoted sentence is the European Council calling on the Council of the European Union to act. The two bodies are distinct despite their very similar names. In the European Council, the member states are represented by their heads of state or government; in the Council of the European Union, the member states are represented by lower-ranked government ministers (finance ministers, foreign ministers, agriculture ministers, transport ministers, etc). The European Council sets the political direction, but (with rare exception) lacks legislative powers. So here the European Council is calling on the Council of the European Union to enact legislation. Of course the Council of the European Union is going to do what the European Council says. But the Council of the European Union needs to wait for the Commission's lawyers to draft the legislation, etc.
The Council of the European Union actually has legislative powers in this area. Based on the wording of the European Council conclusions, I think we can expect formal legislation from the Council of the European Union to enforce the ban. That doesn't stop the member states from acting themselves (under emergency powers they retain) before the ban has formally passed at the EU level. And of course the member states have to enforce the ban, and the EU has only limited recourse if member states refuse (in many but not all cases, the Commission can take the member state to the European Court of Justice). But I doubt that's going to be an issue here, I think there is a clear political consensus in this case.
To be horribly pedantic about it, they haven't actually implemented the decision because the decision hasn't formally been enacted yet. (Decision is actually a technical term in European Union law – EU legislative acts can be classified as directives, regulations, decisions, or recommendations. I'm not sure in this case what type of legislative instrument they are going to use – it could be either a regulation or a decision, it won't be a directive or a recommendation.)
They've just decided to do the same thing independently while they wait.
Dear WastingMyTime89 (<-- not at all!): Excellent post. Thank you to clarify these important details! I wonder if but other (non-EU) European states will follow suit, such as United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, etc.
In the interests of pedantry, there are several ways. The simplest might by to bring the plane over land. There's also the option of going above the vertical limit of the controlled airspace, which seems to be debated, although it must be at least 30km, and less than the boundary with "space" which must be near the Kármán line at around 100km. A tunnel would be possible also, but prohibitively expensive. It would probably be cheaper and easier to get Hungary and Austria to leave the EU.
Let's see how it evolves: I think every country shall make its cost-benefit analysis, and the ones with nothing or very little to lose shall ban. I would bet on medium compliance.
The thing is, to put it bluntly, it's Belarus. Almost all of them have nothing to lose. I imagine air traffic over Belarus can be avoided with minimal financial losses and Belarus itself only generates a small amount of traffic. Plus some of the countries voting for this are actively hostile to Belarus (I think Lithuania is in that category).
The only thing that would make them change their minds is if Russia reacts somehow.
> I imagine air traffic over Belarus can be avoided with minimal financial losses and Belarus itself only generates a small amount of traffic
The ban is for Belarusian airlines over EU members countries. The one who is being targeted to be "financially hurt" is not the EU countries themselves but the Belarusian airlines. I'm sure they'll feel the impact very soon, as they'll basically need to cancel every flight unless it goes to Russia.
It's probably going to be both ways, though. I can't imagine Belarus not retaliating (though the EU has already decided to avoid their airspace, anyway).
Russia could react by operating flights from Minsk using its own companies that have a permit to fly over the EU. Otherwise this is in fact doing the Kremlin a service since it makes Belarus even more dependent on Russia. Lukashenko has been digging his own hole when he ordered that the plane be diverted to Minsk in order to arrest that poor guy and his girlfriend. Now his only "friend" is Putin.
> I think every country shall make its cost-benefit analysis
Nope, that the ban will happen has already passed, which is what this article is about. What hasn't happened yet is that the executive order in each country has yet to happen, but that won't include extensive debate as the decision that has been taken is a united front for the participating countries.
Actively ignoring already agreed orders to pass would be going against their own interest of a united front, which obviously would go against the core principle of the EU, so unlikely to happen.
Decisions like this by the Council are legally binding on member states. Similar to how GDPR is technically implemented by each state's relevant government agency.
If it's restricting flights over their airspace then it only really needs Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. And I'm sure they would be quick to implement such a ruling, as even before this incident they weren't on the best of terms with Belarus.
By European skies, they just mean the skies over the European Union. News articles routinely say Europe when they man the European Union. Sometimes confusingly, but I think the context is clear here.
With a headline of "EU agrees new Belarus sanctions after plane arrest"
It states
> The EU has decided to ban Belarusian airlines from European skies after a flight was diverted to Minsk on Sunday and a dissident journalist arrested.
The specific release from the meeting:
- calls on the Council to adopt the necessary measures to ban overflight of EU airspace by Belarusian airlines and prevent access to EU airports of flights operated by such airlines;
Seems reasonable reporting to me, the EU has decided to do it, and is now implementing that decision.
Further in the article
> The UK has suspended the operating permit for Belarusian state airline Belavia, and EU leaders have called on member states to take similar action.
That the HN submitter changed the headline is hardly a damning indictment of journalism
(The headline of the .com version was the same at 6:27 GMT)
"Cock-up before conspiracy": problem in this case is that journalists do not understand EU process. In fairness to them it is not straightforward and in any field of politics something is said to be "done" at many different junctures: for example when it is politically inevitable, when it is informally agreed, once it has been formally agreed and then, of course, once it has actually been effected.
my comment was without political meaning : I have relatives who need to fly to minsk from EU on Saturday for family reasons, I'm just monitoring the legal status.
The IIHF World Hockey Championships should have taken right now in Minsk and Riga. They are currently taking place only in Riga. I'm sure no one regrets that decision right now.
Unfortunately Belarus were allowed to participate.
I'm not familiar with all of the bureaucracy and hierarchies of the organising bodies, but it looks like a Belarussian and a Russian were elected to the management board of the UEC in March [1]. It will be interesting to see how that affects decisions.
WADA multi-year ban of Russia -- the entire country -- prohibits them from international competition. The very few Russian athletes who pass special criteria can compete stateless. Why would track cycling allow any Russian official near a position of authority, especially in a strength/explosiveness sport?
Because for any "council", "federation", "organisation", "committee", the sport is not about the sport, but about money, power and influence of people in the aforementioned group.
It is still largely symbolic - in last few months Lukashenka has implemented various travel restrictions with the west (both for political reasons and also to limit emigration/brain-drain as e.g. various IT companies were relocating Belarus employees to Poland/Lithuania/etc) and there was a feeling that he might have restricted flights or the ability to fly anyway - so now the same result gets achieved not by the prohibitions of the regime but can be blamed on the "evil neighbours".
It's perhaps somewhat similar to sanctions against Russia which were followed by Russia-imposed sanctions on importing e.g. cheese, which has the benefit of improving trade balance (as people aren't consuming imported products) and any discontent of the people is blamed on the western sanctions; the regime wants to ban certain things but it has less impact on people's satisfaction if the ban can be blamed on everyone else.
Flying over Belarus might be a good income for the country - no longer.
An interesting shift of the last decade or so of sanction wars is that sanctions must be targeted against the regime, not the people. Otherwise it's a bit of an own goal - you give the regime a bogeyman to point at.
As such, this seems like a good, pragmatic type of sanction. Few regular Belarusians will feel the impact, but it does strike at the regime, even if it seems like small change.
Why do you think this is the case? The regime isn't flying on a public airline. If you're a regular Belarusian trying to travel to/from the West, these actions are only making your life worse.
Travelling by land has gotten much more complicated over the last year. Before, to travel to Russia all i had to do is to get a ticket, there was no border between Russia and Belarus. Fell asleep on a train in Minsk, woke up in Moscow\Saint-Petersburg. Nice.
Now the only reason that i am able to travel to/through Russia to Belarus willy-nilly is because i have direct relatives that are now citizens\residents there. I have to have copies of their documents, like passport & document confirming that they are residents and are residing in Russia legally. During last year i had to forfeit a set of documents that would allow me to travel there[0]. Only reason why it worked was because border point was mostly analogue, and in general they were unable to verify that the doc was real. More of a loophole rather than straight hack but still.
Things are not great if you want to travel to\from EU by land. Since august-september 2020 "due to corona" you are allowed to travel "outside" once in 6 months over the land border [1]. There is no limitation on how people can _enter_ the country. Get a visa and you are good to go. Weird? yea. Dumb? hell yea. Think about that like it is an anemic attempt to stop people from leaving the country. Iirc before August there was no limits set by gov on how people can travel at all.
I'm not sure if Belarussians having to cancel their holidays to the West and going to Crimea instead is going to have the desired effect of driving sympathies among Belarussians toward the west.
Moreover the people who actually like Lukashenko will probably be pretty indifferent to this. They weren't planning on flying to Berlin any time soon. I'm almost certain Putin will jump on the chance to have alternate routes to Russian tourist destinations opened up (possibly even subsidized, like he did for flights to Crimea).
I'm starting to wonder if Lukashenko/Putin wasn't counting on this kind of knee jerk reaction. If sanctions were on the cards anyway, with this stunt they got to pick the timing, reason and type.
The desired effect is to increase pressure on Lukashenko and I'm sure every holidaymaker with a ruined trip knows very well whose stupid stunt is to blame for it.
Holidaymakers who were unlikely to be Lukashenko supporters in the first place and who now can't come home and tell people how great the West is.
I don't think he's losing out that badly here. Indeed, increased isolation from the West may have been a goal from the outset. Having the West do it for him is even better.
> Holidaymakers who were unlikely to be Lukashenko supporters in the first place and who now can't come home and tell people how great the West is.
Now even his supporters have to make every foreign flight through Moscow as a constant reminder of what great relations the potato czar has with rest of the world. Dictatorship are very sensitive to image issues (see Winnie the Pooh).
On the practical side, it starves Belarus of overflying fees. The stunt will cost them hundreds of millions, and hopfully further targeted sanctions will make whatever's left (and funneled into their private accounts by the regime) more difficult to spend.
>Dictatorship are very sensitive to image issues (see Winnie the Pooh).
Of course. That's why they goaded the West into sanctioning them for the most hypocritical reason they could.
"Western hypocrisy" is a key plank of Russian propaganda that works decently well at keeping them suspicious, afraid and angry at us. It's used similarly by Democrats on their base against Republicans and vice versa to great effect at keeping the base fired up.
Belarus is not Russia but I'm sure the same applies there.
>The stunt will cost them hundreds of millions
This is probably why RT stated that Putin was willing to step in to help out financially. I expect that was actually even agreed ahead of time.whol
Lukashenko on the whole would probably prefer that as much foreign aid and investment came from Russia as possible. It's his opponents who will want to demonstrate all the great stuff Western investment can do for the country.
And, of course, Putin would prefer it if we severed links given the strategic importance of the country. He doesn't want another Ukraine.
The problem is that EU itself is closed due to COVID(we can't get visas renewed) + we have internal ban on transit through ground borders due to COVID(but most likely to prevent people from moving out permanently)
So essentially, with this ban it is hard to escape if situation goes south.
I'd say banning Belorusian airlines after Belorus hijacked a plane (and kidnapped passengers) is like having your kid kidnapped and proclaiming that the kidnapper isn't welcome in your house.
Friendly sidenote: people from the country of "Belarus" call themselves "Belarusians" (pronounced like "bela-roo-sians", not like "bela-russians" / "belo-russians").
They also sanctioned involved individuals. It's more like a family kidnaps their own kid while he was at your birthday party, and as response you get a restraining order and freeze some of their bank accounts.
Are you saying a kid is the property of his family...?
Anyway, citizenship matters, it is one of the many elements that determine jurisdiction. The US taxes and prosecutes (!) his citizens anywhere in the world, for example; and extradition is a thing.
Legal protection to a foreign citizen abroad is extended by the host country, and that's really what the problem is here: the journalist was effectively protected by European law at all times (going from EU country to EU country with a EU airline), but Belarus invaded our legal space with a competing jurisdiction claim and enforced it with guns and subterfuge. That cannot be allowed.
> Are you saying a kid is the property of his family...?
Hehe, I'll admit that's not a good argument.
> but Belarus invaded our legal space with a competing jurisdiction claim...
They violated an international convention on to which they had signed. In turn it seems reasonable that we no longer extend any benefits pertaining to said convention.
I think you'll find quite a few legal systems currently disagree with that perspective. I'll give you that it's often the traditional perspective, but the children's wellbeing is increasingly the leading priority of related legislation in developed countries, including on issues like forced movement.
It wasn't one of the EU's citizens, it was a Belarusian citizen. They are a sovereign country with the full backing of Russia. I would say this is the minimum the EU needed to do, and probably some sanctions on the leadership as well. It's hard to do much more without further deteriorating relations with Russia. I prefer to avoid a tank war in Eastern Europe, thank you very much.
Not really, because here the hijacker is not one-dimensional, the EU still has options to meaningufully retaliate.
Really meaningful retaliation however would also hit Russia as this thing was orchestrated by them, by for example finally stopping Nordstream.
The only things in Belarus that are profitable are IT companies.
Which BTW brings up a question of big international corporations outsourcing to authoritarian countries. Should they be punished financially for being complicit in breaking human rights?
1) I am not supporting also this one, especially as it was a sad case of vassalisation
2) Refusing to allow use of airspace is different from hijacking plane and abducting people. If someone is using "state piracy" only for the second one it is entirely defensible.
EDIT:
3) at least in this case I can say that my country (Poland) was not complicit, though probably mostly because they were not asked by USA to do so.
4) Plane was not forced to land, but landed due to technical malfunction
> pilots requested emergency landing due to issues with fuel level indicators and thus inability to confirm sufficient amount of fuel to continue flight
Though problem was triggered by France, Italy, Spain and Portugal refused to allow transit.
> 1) I am not supporting also this one, especially as it was a sad case of vassalisation
Don't get me wrong I agree.
> 2) Refusing to allow use of airspace is different from hijacking plane and abducting people. If someone is using "state piracy" only for the second one it is entirely defensible.
Not much different the plane was forced to land in Austria. Also this was a diplomatic mission, unlike commercial flights they had absolutely NO jurisdiction to act like this.
> Also this was a diplomatic mission, unlike commercial flights they had absolutely NO jurisdiction to act like this.
This is, unsurprisingly, wrong.
The situation Evo Morales' plane was wrong, and was caused by several EU countries shamefully bending to America's manhunt for Snowden, but it was well within jurisdiction. Three countries closed their airspace to the plane, which they were fully within their rights to do. As an official state plane, the Chicago Convention didn't apply to it, and state flights explicitly require separate authorization to overfly a country (Article 3 of the Chicago Convention).
The hijacking by Belarus was blatantly against aviation law, and upcoming investigations will definitely confirm that. Countries may force airplanes in their airspace to land, but only under some circumstances:
> every State, in the exercise of its sovereignty, is entitled to require the landing at some designated airport of a civil aircraft flying above its territory without authority or if there are reasonable grounds to conclude that it is being used for any purpose inconsistent with the aims of this Convention
The plane was flying on authorized flight path and nobody claimed that it was really being used as a military or spy plane, which is what the "inconsistent purpose" amounts to.
Thanks for correcting me, however I consider it an example of double standards. The manhunt for whistleblower Snowden, is according to you justified. The man who revealed the mass surveillance the US is engaged in. Which by itself is beyond any point of legality. However everyone is "enraged" now by the arrest of a Belarusian anti-government journalist and propose sanctions against the country which will affect their already crippling economy.
Plane was not forced to land, but landed due to technical malfunction
> pilots requested emergency landing due to issues with fuel level indicators and thus inability to confirm sufficient amount of fuel to continue flight
Though problem was triggered by France, Italy, Spain and Portugal refused to allow transit.
There is difference between hijacking plane using fighter jet and refusal to allow transit. Both with blatant lies as a pretext.
I am sorry but this is a slightly frustrating conversation because we are losing the forests for the trees. In both cases, an aircraft was grounded based on a suspicion. In one case, the official reason was "technical reasons", in another it was due to "bomb threat". In both cases, the official reasons given were a ruse. That is the key focus here in both cases. The question of forcefully grounding an airplane for ulterior purposes with a different official reason. In one case, the scenario didn't achieve the end result because Snowden was not on the plane. In another case, it did play out because Protasevich was on the flight. Just because the results were different, doesn't mean both acts weren't egregious. In both cases, a country used their muscle to land a flight.
Yes. These were both dick moves, but I think they are very different. In one it was a democratically elected government closing the airspace through diplomatic pressure, indirectly resulting in the pilot having land the plane. The plane in question was a private jet not in commercial traffic, so it wasn't full of people.
In this case a dictatorship forced a commercial plane traveling between two EU/nato countries, full of people, to land in a country without a transparent or independent justice system. The grounding was made with a false bomb threat from the plane and actions by Belo(?)rusian agents on the plane intervening. There was no ruse in the Austria situation - the technical reasons were reported by the pilot. The US pressure was to close the french/spanish airspace.
Again, both dick moves, but to me completely different things.
If the US realized Snowden was crossing US airspace and diverted a plane full of people flying between (say) Brazil and Canada to land in the US by using US agents to cause trouble on board or make false bomb threats to force the plane down, I'd be almost as upset (Almost, because I give democratic governments more of a pass, and because the US justice system is at least slightly more transparent and independent, although a Snowden process certainly would show its terrible side)
> In both cases, a country used their muscle to land a flight.
Absolutely. But in one it was diplomatic muscle or "soft power" from a democratic country. In the other it wasn't.
Plane was flying to South America, had plenty of fuel to return to the starting point, and airspace wasn't closed in that direction (the only time I can think of a sudden widespread "land now or be shot down" issue was 9/11)
The flight wasn't covered by Chicago either as it was a diplomatic flight - the alleged search is a whole separate problem
Yeah, Belavia already considering mass layoffs. If somebody is happy that workers of Belavia will be punished instead of Lukashenko - maybe they need to think more.
On the contrary. Our political elites are unable to find political and diplomatic answers. Resorting to bans and sanctions is weak. Inability and unwillingnes to talk to each other will make the people suffer. The ultimate suffering is civil unrest and war. The big picture to me is a very dark one: The world is preparing for war. This is just another side note to heigthen tensions.
There is an appropriate answer for every act. In this case, if Belarus forces an airliner flying over their territory to divert to Minsk with a made-up bomb threat, and even sends a fighter jet to make sure that the pilots get the message, the appropriate answer is bans and sanctions - anything less than that would be seen as weak.
No, endless talk with no action is weak and pathetic. Mafia states will shit on you if you show unwillingness to stand for yourself. Biden lifted sanctions on Nord Stream and three days later you have this stunt. Let that be a lesson. Every incoming president has had such trial by fire.
They call for blood. You call for blood. This won't lead to less blood. As I stated in my comment and as you casually confirmed. I don't want blood at all.
> They call for blood. You call for blood. This won't lead to less blood.
Yes it will, because Belarus nor Russia are in a position for any serious confrontation. As soon as you call their bluff, they will retreat, as they have done many times before. Their power comes from YOUR FEAR and unwillingness to react appropriately to their provocations.
Both Rusia and Belarus are mafia states that serve as piggy banks to oligarchs, who belong to the global elite. When their status, access and financial wellbeing takes a hit from sanctions, oligarchs will tell their public-facing puppets to tone down and seek better relations.
Oligarhs are not hermits like Kim from the Best Korea or leaders of Middle Eastern theocracies. Their families live in the west, because Russia is a dangerous shithole; they own luxury apartments in NYC and houses in the best parts of London. They spend their holidays in Los Angeles, Southern France and elsewhere. Their kids and wives want to live like the rich people they see on Instagram and in Hollywood movies. They are not willing to give this westernized life up, and that's the string to pull them by: identify key power brokers and their inner circles and target them mercilessly.
I am truly sorry to say so. This is very simplistic, aggressive and arrogant. I don't want to excuse what has happened but we are in desperate need for way more capable and resourceful political elites.
Yeah, bend over and take another load. What will it be next time? A drive-by shooting of a dissident and a bunch of bystanders in Trafalgar Square? Another airliner shootdown? Russian tanks in Kiev?
They've already started two wars, murdered countless people home and abroad, blown up ammo depots on NATO territory, shot down an airliner, now hijacked another. How stupid can you be to continue this appeasement. Why should they stop?
The governments in those nations are not shy to touch on the freedoms of their population, and often disagree with the EU when the EU points these things out. Also Poland being directly next to Belarus will affect their relations.
Poland has been strongly anti-Lukashenka for a long time, and since 2007 broadcasts a Belarusian-language satellite TV channel (Belsat). It's probably the only non-regime-controlled Belarusian speaking TV.
You can be an authoritative regime and still hate Russia and its puppets with passion for what atrocities they did in last century (1956 for Hungary, less but still bloody 1968 for Czechoslovakia).
Hungary (and Poland) have been quite clever in how they undermine freedom: almost every individual thing they've done can be justified in isolation by saying, "Look, countries X, Y and Z do the same thing!", but when you look at all those things together and look at how they interact you realise that the situation is really quite bad there - even compared to the USA! Or that's my understanding of the situation; I'm not really an expert in the constitutional law of central European countries.
This has become de facto meaningless in most of the EU countries as European law is over-writing local laws, in effect making the local (i.e. national) separation of powers meaningless. The German Constitutional Court is trying to fight this [1] but I think it's a losing battle, it's either accept the inevitable (meaning European law supersedes local law) or go the Brexit way.
And I have not yet seen any state TV which is not sympathetic to the government bureaucracy. If you are being paid by the state, you are not going to be too critical of the state. You don't see much critical of the German government in the supposedly independent German state TV, except maybe statements that restrictions of basic rights are not drastic enough...
So either Germany is also an authoritarian regime, or what is happening in Hungary is not that out of the ordinary.
So you think the head of the constitutional court being an active politician with 12 years in parliament is a minor deviation from a platonic ideal? That is exactly the same as what the OP mentioned.
The German constitutional court is stacked with political appointees.
Sure, the situation in Hungary might be even worse. But western countries in the last decade have completely lost the moral high ground.
You can not imprison journalists like Julian Assange in solitary confinement in conditions that amount to torture, and then complain about lack of press freedom in other countries.
You can not pick your party colleague to lead the constitutional court and then complain about political court appointees in other countries.
This kind of selective outrage is just ridiculous.
That's one guy in a constitutional court of 16 members, and he wasn't a political appointment but was elected by the German parliament (something like a parliament, I'm no expert on the german system).
Assange was put in prison for being a bail jumper wanted on rape allegations. He's now in a perfectly ordinary British prison, going through the usual extradition process under politically independent judicial authority. There's no guarantee he will even be extradited.
Viktor Orban is now functionally a dictator ruling by emergency decree, and has effectively neutralised the constitutional court. They even retroactively invalidated all decisions made by the court before 2012 for goodness sake! There is no way shape or form in which this can be meaningfully equated to anything else in the history of the EU.
In Germany we have the biggest restrictions of fundamental rights since the existence of the federal republic of Germany.
We are all on indefinite house arrest. Millions of people are not allowed to work.
And the constitutional court does not even want to hear cases objecting to this. They will make a decision in 1 or 2 years when it has become irrelevant.
So it seems we don't have any fundamental rights at all. So spare me the outrage about Hungary.
Ok, I'll explain the difference. The lockdown in Germany overwhelmingly has the support of the population. If this was not the case, you would expect to see the politicians and parties that instigated the lockdowns severely punished for it in upcoming elections, but that won't happen. It's not a significant issue in the elections. Once the pandemic passes, the restrictions will be lifted. No permanent changes to the fundamental constitutions of Germany have been enacted using emergency laws justified under the pandemic, and if there were they'd still be subject to judicial review and accountability to the electorate. None of that has changed.
I will freely admit Orban does have a lot of support in Hungary, but he has used that to erase the country's judicial constitutional history, not just influence one judicial appointment nut utterly stack the entire judicial system, institute permanent constitutional changes under emergency powers, ruthlessly suppress independent journalism and undermine the entire electoral process in Hungary. He's not even coy about it, he just flat out says that's what he's doing.
There is no level of equivalence, which I'm sure you are completely aware of and fully understand, but this weaselly whataboutism is very tiring. If you actually support what he's doing, just be honest about it and say so, and tell us why.
> The lockdown in Germany overwhelmingly has the support of the population.
Fundamental rights are not supposed to be subject to majority approval. I might be in the minority, but I would still like to leave my house after 22:00 without risking arrest.
But this discussion is pointless.
If you seriously believe that e.g. what is being done to Julian Assange has anything to do with an independent judicial system, there is nothing to discuss.
This discussion is pointless because you keep talking at people and not to people, and talking over the argumentation to soapbox your own thoughts instead of engaging with the arguments. Then it isn't a discussion, it's you trying to find a good soapbox to do an exposé of your opinions, it's fucking tiring.
Ah, you are one of those fundamentalists... Yeah, there is also a pandemic going on, look at us here in Sweden how well it works to leave to personal responsibility and self risk assessment to follow health guidelines.
Of course, but both of them can be true at the same time. I wouldn't call either of those countries an authoritarian regime, but they've both moved several steps in that direction.
Your parent said: "disagree with the EU when the EU points these things out". And that definitely happened, the EU has been saying "we're concerned about that" for a while now, and the only response has been "nah, it's fine".
Good thing the parent did not said that. What he said was that these countries are "not shy to touch on the freedoms of their population" and that they dont like when someone in EU points that out.
I don't get how people still put Poland (and Hungary) on the same level with Belarus or China. Both are democratic nations with just a right wing leadership and political system. And european right wing is more left wing than the Democrats in the US in many social policies.
Poland isn't Northkorea or China, despite how the media likes to portray them so. They are way more democratic than the last Trump administration, even if that doesn't mean much to be honest.
Poland, and Hungary even worse, are trending authoritarian/undemocratic. There is still a very long way to go before they even begin to approach totalitarian dictatorships like Belarus or China (or even Russia).
But to me Poland and Hungary are more immediately worrying because they are EU countries and they only very recently took a turn for less independent courts, less free media and so on. There is still time to change course there, while in Belarus there isn't.
Alliance of Democracies Foundation's yearly Democracy Perception Index from 2021[0] had 77% Chinese people seeing their country as having "just the right amount of democracy"[1], which is the exact same percentage as they found in Denmark so it really isn't as simple as that. It also isn't about Right Vs. Left because on a simple left-right axis the US is located further to the right than Saudi Arabia and Hitler[2] and however you see US politics it isn't comparable to Nazism. You need to include more than just left right to get a reasonably useable result.
I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing with your point of view here just saying that when "just the right amount of democracy" can differ so much that #7 on Most democratic countries in the world[3] and #157 on the list agree they have the right amount of democracy then it isn't a surprise that countries that might differ a lot are seen as comparable by some and not others.
1: Alliance of Democracies Foundation is chaired by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. This isn't just some cranks rating China based on scared citizens not daring to say otherwise.
2: Obama is pretty close to Hitler on a left-right-only axis but Trump, Bush, etc. are far to the right of Hitler. It is a broken comparison outside of local politics.
Orban just privatized all universities and preparing to privatize all available houses (robbed 10s of billions of dollars from the public), and people are really pissed even though they are still afraid to go on the streets. Orban went too far, and now he started to play a bit nicer.
> If Mr Orban ever does hit an obstacle, he surrenders some gains, while keeping the bulk of them. (The Hungarian leader even has a name for this legal waltz: the peacock dance.)
Orbán have vetoed a number of EU resolutions recently, most importantly one condemning China over Hong Kong. He probably coordinated with Mr Putin and they agreed Lukashenko can be fed to the dogs for all they care and so Orbán now loses Lukashenko but keeps Russia and China.
Putin plays the game well too: he quite probably approved of Lukashenko doing this, expecting a backlash against Belarus for it but not against Russia, so truly what does he care really? Belarus is an ally for now but meh. If he would've vetoed Lukashenko's batshit crazy idea it would've strained the relationship so why would he? It's not like EU sanctions will immediately topple Lukashenko.
On the contrary Putin probably cheered him on knowing that some outcome like this was likely.
Apparently Lukashenko has been playing a bit of chicken with Putin at times saying "Maybe I should be friendly with the EU instead?", now they both know that Luk is in Putins hands without even needing to say a single word.
Hungary, yes. Poland I think is less surprising. It's been mostly Hungary that has had the reservations recently about other countries' inner affairs recently.
As others have said these sanctions will likely do more to harm the repressed citizens of the regime than Lukashenko
[1] https://www.bnt.eu/cs/zpravy/pravni-novinky/3137-belarus-int...