No, not "with us or against us" just genuinely surprised at the level of anger being expressed by avgcorrection to what to me seemed pretty innocuous speculatio

No, not "with us or against us" just genuinely surprised at the level of anger being expressed by avgcorrection to what to me seemed pretty innocuous speculation: I think it's possible that the status of the VKS pilots is contributing to a reluctance to fly them into danger for political reasons. Russia is famous for corruption, seems a weird thing to defend. Even in the US there are at least some well-connected sons getting seats in fighter jets, and "paid drivers" have existed in Formula 1 since forever. Doesn't seem too far fetched, but right or wrong hardly worth any kind of attack. Additionally I never said the pilots would be incompetent--in my experience when people start responding to accusations that were never made, something else is going on in their head. For what it's worth, I like Russia. I'm ethnically from a former Soviet state and although I have very little cultural connection to it, whenever I meet Russians anywhere in the world they've been instantly friendly towards me just based on my name. Even with this happening I hope that someday within my lifetime EU/Russian relation can be fully normalized.