But while the intelligence flights have transited German airspace—the most direct route between Britain and Ukraine—the weapons flights have been making detours

But while the intelligence flights have transited German airspace—the most direct route between Britain and Ukraine—the weapons flights have been making detours around Germany. Britain’s Defense Ministry played down the detours, confirming that it didn’t seek overflight permission. But that’s the point: Britain didn’t ask because that would have forced Germany to grant or reject the request. Britain believed the decision would be difficult for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s new government. Which is interesting because despite the Red-Green "opposition" to the 2003 invasion of Iraq - they gave a full green light to the U.S. to uses its air bases in their country (most principally the EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart) to conduct all manor of offensive operations in the course of that overtly aggressive and basically criminal undertaking. On top of a long history of selling arms to any number of despotic regimes (most notably Egypt, Qaddafi's Libya), or regimes slightly less despotic but engaged in long-term offensive operations against their own citizenry (Turkey), sometimes in violation of its own regulations against such transfers. Which makes its newly discovered vigilance and sense of "principle" in regard to transfers to Ukraine seem quite suspect.