hi doma,
you sure do bend the knee to the views of governments, so long as they are not western ones.
for myself, i trust authoritarian states like russia and china even less than i do western governments. part of the reason some western governments' decisions seem iniquitous is that in the end their actions are usually exposed to daylight. putin simply executes journalists whose reporting he doesn't like.
if we move away from the plane and back to ukrainian divisibility, there is a decent case that ukraine is two countries rather than one. it seems clear that the divide between a european style vision and a russian style one runs approximately either side of the river dnieper.
if everyone was a little bit flexible, perhaps a viable solution might be found.