Uh-oh...Polish President's Plane Crashes in Russia

Breaking poop on the bbc.

Foggy conditions, crashed on arrival.

President and central bank boss dead.

Time to brush up on Eastern European geopolitics.

:popcorn:

Interesting!

[quote=“hardball”]

Time to brush up on Eastern European geopolitics.

:popcorn:[/quote]

[quote=“the bbc”]Mr Kaczynski has been a controversial figure in Polish politics, advocating a right-wing Catholic agenda.

He has opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes. [/quote]

[quote=“jimipresley”][quote=“hardball”]

Time to brush up on Eastern European geopolitics.

:popcorn:[/quote]

[quote=“the bbc”]Mr Kaczynski has been a controversial figure in Polish politics, advocating a right-wing Catholic agenda.

He has opposed rapid free-market reforms and favoured retaining social welfare programmes. [/quote][/quote]
Well, the little I know is that Poland’s economy is strong, and it is THE route from Russia to Western Europe/Germany…militarily and economically. Just read the book, The Next 100 Years, and the author gave lots of paper to Poland and its power…

I read Russian swoop and snatch. This is a huge chance for Russia to “befriend” the Poles…on the anniversary of when they massacred 20,000 Polish soldiers…oopsie :blush:

This is really sad. I came across a list of people on that plane.(sorry I clear my computer history a lot - I’m sure something more accurate will be posted soon) There were so many government officials on it. Not the vice president, but lots and lots of other elected officials. It’s a sad and tragic day for Poland. I hope they can get some semblance of a functioning government soon.

Although sad, i don’t think it will matter that much for the politics of Poland anyways, the head of government is the prime minister, and Donald Tusk is alive and well.

Also, the Polish institutions are strong enough to survive this, it’s a EU and NATO member and not some banana republic.

[quote=“Mr He”]Although sad, I don’t think it will matter that much for the politics of Poland anyways, the head of government is the prime minister, and Donald Tusk is alive and well.

Also, the Polish institutions are strong enough to survive this, it’s a EU and NATO member and not some banana republic.[/quote]
True.

It will be more interesting to watch how Germany and Russia respond and “help.”

Flying a 20+ year old Tupolev is asking for trouble …

It is indeed a sad day for Poland, when their President, first lady, so many other leaders including the Army Chief of Staff have met with this accident. A setback of sorts.

Briefly perusing an article about it yesterday, they were using a Soviet aircraft designed in the '60’s. This one was 20 years old. Time to upgrade their equipment.

blogs.wsj.com/new-europe/2010/04 … g-coffins/

And putting a good chunk of your political, economic and military elite on one plane was crazy.