Sometimes you just have to shake your head.
When friends offer to help, keeping quiet is often the best policy. Especially when Putin is involved.
Fighter aircraft were to be donated to Ukraine’s beleagured air force. Instead of keeping quiet. Sending pilots over to the EU. Bringing the aircraft back to Ukraiina. Then pretending as if they were Ukrainian aircraft all along. Would have been a done deal by now, but someone told the world. And now? No aircraft.
Compare this to how Putin sent troops into Crimea. Troops wore no Russian flags, or any marking. So there was no “evidence” that Russia was involved. Putin could, and did, deny that any Russian troops were involved. And the world swallowed the lie.
Ukraiina could have sent the pilots over to the EU, brought the aircraft back, and kept quiet. The donor countries could have denied ever sending any official help. In the world of politics, everyone would swallow the lie. Even though, everybody would know it was a lie. Plausable deniability. Sad but true.
However the Ukrainian parliament issued a tweet about 70 planes and who was donating them. Politico reported the donation, which changed to a lower number in subsequent reports, and now reports that no planes are being donated.
If you are “getting milk through the fence” best to keep quiet.
Or, translating for the world of politics, “Deny. Deny. Deny.”
so true!
Wise words!