Russia trying to start WWIII

Another Malaysian Airlines plane is down. It went down over Ukraine, and its believed that it was shot down by the Russians. They've also apparently shot down two other Ukrainian planes (a jet and a cargo plane) this week.

World War III? Please. The US will condemn Russia's actions, Russia will condemn the actions of independent separatists, Malaysia Airlines will go bankrupt (and rightly so, why the fuck are they flying aircraft over that area? You're in the air, take a fucking diversion) but as far as war's concerned the calculation hasn't changed. Nobody wants to fuck with Russia unless they have to, and they're not going to be willing to do it over them mistakenly downing an aircraft. Even when overtly Russian forces deliberately downed a passenger airliner in 1982 nobody went to war over it.

Flight Radar 24 shows plenty of other commercial planes over Ukraine at the same time. It's not a warzone, and it's a normal flight path.

Scuba Steve wrote:Flight Radar 24 shows plenty of other commercial planes over Ukraine at the same time. It's not a warzone, and it's a normal flight path.

I'd suggest they should probably stop flights like that on days when a couple of other aircraft have already been shot down.

That wasn't known until today though. From what I'm listening to now, it's just being found out that the cargo plane was shot down on Monday. I haven't seen anything else about that plane coming down before now. That's a big oversight for sure if it was known that is was shot down and planes were still flying around in the area. 

And if it is the separatists, they have had some Russian military help. The plane was 30k+ feet in the air. Separatists by themselves wouldn't have the weaponry to fire a missile that high.

There's not going to be a WWIII because of this. The USA isn't going to invest so many lives and money again on a big war over something so miniscule. Everyone is sick of wars. As long as we don't have a mad Republican President anytime soon, I see America's influence or eagerness to police the world waning.

I know its meant to be a regional conflict, but it's implications are far reaching. I don't think Putin's end game is another world war (and even if its separatists doing this, he's agitating them), but people are going to be very wary of any move he makes. Think we are sliding down a slope that'll lead to another version of the Cold War.

Steve with the hot take topic name.

Gotta get the crowds in somehow.

Airlines really noped the fuck outta Ukraine airspace.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:World War III?  Please.  The US will condemn Russia's actions, Russia will condemn the actions of independent separatists, Malaysia Airlines will go bankrupt (and rightly so, why the fuck are they flying aircraft over that area?  You're in the air, take a fucking diversion) but as far as war's concerned the calculation hasn't changed.  Nobody wants to fuck with Russia unless they have to, and they're not going to be willing to do it over them mistakenly downing an aircraft.  Even when overtly Russian forces deliberately downed a passenger airliner in 1982 nobody went to war over it.

You forgot the bit where the UN condemns the condemnation and outlines just how seriously it takes this issue.

Appears that it was Ukraine separatists that shot down the plane. Have to imagine that the weapons and training is from Russia though. Those missile systems just aren't available to rebels like that.