Vladimir Putin must hate aviation. The tragic crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt last weekend, with mounting evidence of a terrorist attack by ISIL, is but the latest in a series of air disasters challenging the Kremlin over the last year. All of these have directly resulted from Moscow’s ever more aggressive foreign policy — inUkraine, at NATO borders, and over Syria.
Each of them profoundly impacts, and indeed reduces, the policy options available to the Russian leadership. And none of them, unfortunately, has so far been able to convince Putin that only a radical departure from his prevailing course …read more