Putin’s revenge for the humiliation suffered from Dutch Deputy Minister Ollongren

The Russian government threatened to close its airspace to all Dutch air traffic seems more than a dispute over landing rights at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport.

Despite the fact, the Netherlands is Russia’s No. 1 trade partner in Europe In 2013, Amsterdam pulled out all the stops to humiliate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rainbow flags were flown at half-mast, the canals were crowded with rafts, and thousands of protesters came out, waving provocative signs. The city’s mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, was too busy to welcome Vladimir Putin himself, signalling that the Russian president was a person of no significance. Instead, he sent lesbian Deputy Mayor Kajsa Ollongren to meet the Russian delegation. She told Euronews, “We have a large gay community in Amsterdam, and we want to make sure that in our city everybody can live the way they want and be whoever they are, and we want to make sure that everybody in the world knows that.” Amsterdam’s city council felt it must tell Mr Putin that they did not agree with the Russian law that prohibited “gay propaganda” to minors. Whatever one may think of the Russian policy or the LGBTQ community, Mrs Ollongren and Mr van der Laan, both not elected representatives of Amsterdam, gave Mr Putin the most disrespectful and humiliating reception in his career. Knowing Mr Putin’s style of governing and his remarkable patience, you could be certain that he would retaliate at the moment that suited the Russians best while the Dutch least expected it.

Mrs Ollongren is now the deputy prime minister and minister of the interior, and it seems payback time for the Russians.

The Amsterdam Airport Schiphol have cut the landing rights or slots of numerous foreign airfreight carriers for failure to fully utilize its existing slots, according to European rules. One of the affected is the Russian AirBridgeCargo airfreight company. The Russian leadership reacted with a vengeance and threatened to close the whole Russian airspace to all Dutch air traffic. This will primarily hit KLM, the Netherlands’ flag carrier airline, which will not be not allowed to fly to Moscow. What’s even worse, 15% of KLM’s trips to the Far East cross Russian airspace. Now the carrier and the Dutch authorities are trying to solve the problem as KLM offered AirBridgeCargo some of their slots or landing rights. The over-reaction of the Russians on the revocation of slots shows that the relation between the two countries is bad.

The new Dutch government with Minister Kaja Ollogren as Deputy Prime Minister will have a hard time solving the problem diplomatically. We guess Mr Putin did not forget the childish welcome in Amsterdam and we are certain he remembers the new Dutch minister as a woman who wanted to teach him a moral lesson. Before even becoming a Dutch minister, Kaja Ollogren, a Swedish national, already did terrible damage to vital Dutch interests with her irresponsible action in 2013.