Roundup: Questions about Putin’s motives

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It’s now day twelve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it appears to remain fairly stalled, but shelling continues. There had apparently been an agreement with Russia for a ceasefire to allow the evacuation of Mariupol, which they did not then live up to, making civilian evacuations all the more difficult in the area. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worries that Odessa will be the next city to be targeted. And because Ukraine is considered Europe’s breadbasket, this is going to drive up the price of grain, further fuelling inflation, and there seems to be little idea of how this conflict could end considering where we are at currently.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1500103479687360520

Something else we’ve seen over the weekend are a number of analyses of what Putin might have been thinking when he made the decision to invade. While I would recommend you read this post from Dan Gardner, there is also this thread by a former Russian foreign minister which also sheds a bit of insight (not fully replicated below, but just some key highlights).

On a related note to this conflict is the hope or at least speculation that this will mean that we’ll finally be serious about our defence spending in this country, but that relies on some poor assumptions, one of which is that the current government hasn’t been spending. They have, and they can’t actually spend any more because of capacity constraints within the Forces, not only in terms of our fairly broken procurement process, but mostly because they simply don’t have enough personnel. We have a major recruitment shortfall, and that severely limits their ability to actually spend their budgets. But let’s hope this doesn’t derail the efforts to fix the culture within the Forces that is proving a detriment to recruitment and retention, because you know there will be voices calling for it.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau has landed in the UK to begin his week of meetings on the response to the invasion of Ukraine (and will have an audience with the Queen later today).
  • Here’s a look at how Chrystia Freeland has been playing a leadership role in Canada and abroad on the Ukraine file, particularly with the sanctions.
  • The Star also has profiles of Anita Anand and Mélanie Joly and the roles they are playing with the Ukraine situation.
  • The RCMP claim they are leaning more heavily on deterrence than use of force these days (and yet fatal RCMP shootings are on the rise).
  • The court-appointed company involved in settlements of military sexual assault cases has suffered yet more privacy breaches.
  • MPs from all parties are worried about disinformation as they are being targeted and harassed by people consuming conspiracy theories.
  • Liberal MPs Yasir Naqvi and Greg Fergus want the Procedure and House Affairs committee to examine the future status of Wellington Street, post-occupation.
  • Pierre Poilievre is trying to make hay with a promise to scrap the carbon price.
  • Interim Green Party leader Amita Kuttner is planning a grassroots cross-country tour starting later this month.
  • Stephen Saideman explains the “Disease of MOAR” when it comes to the demands we are seeing to do more to aid Ukraine.
  • Chantal Hébert has five takeaways of the ways the federal government responded to Ukraine differently from the occupation in downtown Ottawa.
  • Colby Cosh offers a reminder not to be nasty to individual Russians because of actions taking by their government (for whom they are victims as well).

Odds and ends:

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