Politicians and geography - embarrassing mistakes

Liz Truss, the head of British diplomacy, had to explain her geographical mistakes in Moscow.

Elizabeth Mary Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who has served as Foreign Secretary since autumn 2021 and Minister for Women and Equalities since 2019.

Foreign ministers of Britain and Russia - Liz Truss and Sergei Lavrov

Liz Truss, head of British diplomacy, had to explain the geographical confusion in Moscow. In talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, she said that Britain will never recognize Russian sovereignty in the Rostov and Voronezh regions, which are part of Russia.
According to the portal kommersant.ru so she reacted to the remark of her counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who tried to convince her that Russia was not going to attack against Ukraine. He argued that "Russian soldiers are on the territory of his country" .

Russia has a choice either to continue diplomatic negotiations, or to aggressively mass troops near the borders of Ukraine, said the head of British diplomacy Liz Truss after talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. The Russian foreign minister immediately said that Russia preferred a diplomatic solution, but Thursday's conversation with his British colleague was described as a dialogue "dumb with deaf", the meeting he said disappointed him.

! ! ! "Do you recognize the sovereignty of Russia in the Rostov and Voronezh regions?" Lavrov asked during the meeting. "Britain will never recognize Russia's sovereignty in these regions," Truss responded after a short pause. Later she explained that she thought that Lavrov was talking about part of Ukraine. ! ! !
Another geographical "blunder" Truss has previously drawn attention to Mariya Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy. She was intrigued by the statement that Britain will help the Baltic allies "across the Black Sea". "The Baltic countries are so named because they are located on the shores of this sea, not the Black one," the spokeswoman noted ironically.

Geography:
Latvia (one of the Baltic states)  - north coast of Black sea - 2000 km
Voronezh (Russia)  - Ukrainian border 200 km
Rostov(Russia)  - Ukrainian border 70 kms  

Mrs. Truss should study a bit of political geography: Like any science, political geography has its object of research.

From Wiki:

Political geography is a scientific discipline developing on the border of geography and political science - connected with history, sociology, state and international law. It deals with the peculiarities of political and state formation, forms of government, territorial-administrative organization, the formation of the state territory, the specifics of the position of the state, its borders, the analysis of the distribution of political forces, the geographical peculiarities of elections to various bodies of power. In the general consciousness, it belongs to the system of geographical sciences, to the group of socio-geographical disciplines.
In modern political geography, it is primarily about:

How and why do states and organisations form into regional groupings, whether formal (e.g. European Union) or informal (e.g. Third World)
Relations between states and their former colonies
Relations between the government and the people
Functions, delimitation and demarcation of boundaries
Influence of geographical factors on politics
Electoral geography

 British politicians will have a lot of work with the help to the Baltic states from the Black Sea. They will have to deploy aircraft, because it would probably not be possible over land, they would have to pass not only through Ukraine, but also through Belarus, and it is possible to doubt successfully that Belarus would allow them to do so. Other possibility would be through Central Europe or via Russia ?? 

Such blunders in politics are incomprehensible. Perhaps it would be a smile if the minister were in charge of agriculture or local development, but in the case of the secretary of state, I stare with my mouth open.

Sometimes I feel that political parties have to take a lot of care to choose the right representatives. I have  more and more the impression that really educated and intelligent people have been avoiding politics in a big way lately.
Is it humorous or is it sad? Probably both....
What can be done ... Britain is not alone in this, the level of education, especially in geography, has recently suffered greatly in several countries and the Czech Republic is unfortunately no exception.

We have to hope that inspite of these ignorant mistakes the common sense and rational thinking will prevail, which will rule out a devastating war conflict.

                                                           Margaret