Roundup: A Ukrainian delegation in Ottawa

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We are now on or about day thirty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has accused Ukraine of crossing the border with two helicopter gunships to attack a fuel depot in Belgorod—something that the Ukrainians deny, which raises the notion that this may be some kind of false-flag operation by Russia to justify further action against Ukraine. After all, CSE has outlined some of the disinformation storylines that Russia has been pushing around their invasion of Ukraine, including the fabrication that Ukrainians are harvesting organs from soldiers, which is blatantly untrue—but Russia has been bad enough at their information operations that it may not be too surprising if they staged this explosion in Belgorod. Also pressing is the statement from president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russian forces have been leaving mines in the area outside of Kyiv, including around homes and corpses.

https://twitter.com/ArmUkraineNow/status/1510096650823421958

Elsewhere, Ukraine has paused its efforts to recruit fighters internationally, given that there are some problems with the legal status of some of them with their home countries, but also the fact that it actually doesn’t make sense to put these people on the front lines with little-to-no training. That said, they stated that they still need help with non-combat roles, such as transporting food, ammunition, fuel, and moving wounded soldiers from the battlefields, so we’ll see if there is still the same enthusiasm for those roles. As for refugees coming to Canada, there are concerns that there are now months-long waits for biometrics appointments at embassies and consulates in surrounding countries, but the government has been putting more resources in those offices, and have stated that it would actually take longer to make the IT changes necessary for visa-free travel than this system which adapts existing travel streams to the country. I guess we’ll see which winds up being correct.

Meanwhile, five Ukrainian parliamentarians have been in Ottawa for the past two days, meeting with Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, Anita Anand, and other parliamentarians. Part of what they have asked for the government are a specific shopping list of weapons and lethal aid, as well as financial aid. It sounds like there haven’t been any announcements out of these meetings, other than an assurance to watch next week’s budget, so that’s one more thing to stay tuned for on Thursday.

Good reads:

  • Dr. Theresa Tam recommends that people should still be wearing masks as case counts are going up, and that we will likely spikes in the spring, fall, and winter.
  • The emissions reduction plan doesn’t book many reductions from agriculture, both because of how the emissions are counted, and because of longer-term plans.
  • The government is opposing an attempt by families of downed airliner PS752 to collect on Iran’s vacant embassy and residences, because the rule of law matters.
  • The Pope made an apology (albeit qualified) for residential schools and committed to coming to Canada, which has been a decades-long fight for some.
  • Industry voices are hoping the budget contains measures to help bolster the resilience of supply chains going forward.
  • Municipalities across Canada want the federal government to pay for RCMP pay increases, never mind that they’re already getting a huge subsidy by contracting.
  • The US Department of Agriculture has given the okay for PEI potatoes to resume entry into the country following the potato wart issue.
  • Here is a look at how Pierre Poilievre has been running his campaign, what messages he’s testing, and how he’s signing up new members.
  • BC is deferring logging over a million hectares of old-growth forests, in part at the request of some local First Nations.
  • Paul Wells talks to Lt.-Col. Melanie Lake about training Ukrainian soldiers, what lessons Canada imparted on them, and what they have that Canada couldn’t teach.
  • My weekend column looks at the escalation of political rhetoric, with talk of traitors and “dictators,” and how that is fuelling extremism.

Odds and ends:

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