Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has arrived in Poland, where most of an estimated two million Ukrainians have fled the Russian war on their country.
Trudeau is planning to visit a temporary shelter for refugees as part of his day in Warsaw, Poland.
… Trudeau is also expected to meet with U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris in Poland this evening to discuss the situation in Ukraine.
Almost praying for nuclear war!
Jacob Heilbrunn: Is there a way out of this crisis for Ukraine, Russia, and America?
Konstantin Rymchukov: Theoretically, there is always a way out. Practically, at this moment, I don’t think it’s going to be finished soon.
JH: Why not?
KR: We are witnessing the rise of a cancel culture directed against Russia. I don’t understand the mechanism to end it. Each day companies—McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Adidas—are leaving Russia. It is often driven by emotions and an evident lack of presumption of innocence. I fundamentally believe that sooner or later things will settle down. But I also believe that canceling Russia is a huge difference as opposed to previous rounds of sanctions.
Wanted: multilingual former soldiers willing to covertly head into Ukraine for the handsome sum of up to $2,000 (£1,523) per day – plus bonus – to help rescue families from an increasingly grim conflict.
It sounds ripped from the script of an action movie, but the job advert is real – taken from an employment website, Silent Professionals, for those working in the private military and security industry.
And, insiders say, demand is growing. Amid a gut-wrenching war in Ukraine, US and European private contractors say they are increasingly eying opportunities, ranging from ‘extraction’ missions to helping with logistics.
For providing military aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, the Biden administration has congratulated itself for standing strong. NATO and the West summoned a cohesion and a collective indignation unanticipated by Putin. Germany’s profession of the intent to increase military spending to 2 percent and to wean itself at least partially off its over-reliance on Russian oil and natural gas were especially deserving of praise. At the same time, however, one recent incident is disturbing in terms of a lack of resolve.
It’s time for your red pill. Something smells rotten in Ukraine. The story is rotten, rancid, hinky; the story just doesn’t add up.
President Joe Biden and the media desperately want you to believe Russia is the bad guy and Ukraine is a little angel. They want you to fall in love with underdog Ukraine. They want you to support America getting involved on behalf of Ukraine.
On the side of Soros?
The Ukraine War isn’t going well for anybody, but it seems like the country making the biggest mistakes is the biggest country not even fighting there.
Yeah, that’s the United States, led, as it were, by Presidentish Joe Biden.
There’s also an undercurrent of progressives hellbent on starting World War III, but we’ll get to them shortly.
… What everyone can see is that the great power status of the United States, already badly damaged by the Biden administration over the past 14 months, has been damaged even more. The US has not deterred Russia from acting in Ukraine, and has not even slowed down or interrupted Russia’s aggression. There was no “resolute, massive, and united Transatlantic response.” There has not even been a resolute and massive American response.
The world, both physical and digital, finds itself in unprecedented times as the conflict in Ukraine rages.
Corporate giants such as Meta, Google and Apple, who have always framed themselves as neutral tech firms, are now pinning their political colours to the mast – banning products in Russia in response to its invasion.
Meanwhile the internet itself is changing for Russian users – with Twitter and Facebook blocked, TikTok not allowing Russian users to post, and the police reportedly stopping people in the streets to look at what they are viewing on their phones.
Videos circulating on social media of captured Russian soldiers calling their families and denouncing the invasion of Ukraine may be contributing to the violation of international law about how prisoners of war should be treated.
“You may not publish pictures of prisoners of war where they can be recognized,” said Marco Sassoli, a professor of international law at the University of Geneva and a special advisor on international humanitarian law to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. “And obviously [in these cases], they can be recognized.”
Countering the threat that Russian President Vladimir Putin poses to democracies around the world will require those countries to confront floundering faith in public institutions among their citizens, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday.
“Vladimir Putin is undoubtedly a threat to Ukrainians, and to people outside their borders. Even as we are clear-eyed about the challenges he presents, we mustn’t despair,” Trudeau said in a keynote address to the Munich Security Conference in Berlin, Germany.
“Democracy is always stronger than authoritarianism,” he added, before noting: “If we’re going to be honest with each other, democracy hasn’t exactly been at its best.”
So many citizens of Canada have shown up in Ukraine to fight for the country’s new foreign legion, the organization has set up a separate Canadian battalion, says a Ukrainian government source.
Trudeau was asked on Wednesday for his assessment of whether Ukraine could prevail during a question and answer session following a foreign policy speech he delivered at the Munich Security Conference and the Atlantic Bridge, in Berlin.
“Yes, I do. Unquestionably,” Trudeau said. “The question is how long it’s going to take.”
Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of bombing a children’s hospital in the besieged port of Mariupol during a supposed ceasefire to enable some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in the city to escape.
Russia had said it would hold fire to let civilians flee Mariupol and other besieged cities on Wednesday. But the city council said the hospital had been hit several times.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a tweet that “children are under wreckage," claiming Russian forces dropped a bomb on a children’s hospital in Mariupol on Wednesday. He called for the sky to be closed to “stop the killings."https://t.co/n6ZDBcyqtG pic.twitter.com/FGnzCYOopW
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 9, 2022
Russia will soon be unable to pay its debts, according to a leading credit ratings agency.
Fitch Ratings downgraded its view of the country’s government debt, warning a default is “imminent”.
The move comes amid increasing international sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
A credit rating is intended to help investors understand the level of risk they face in buying a country’s debt – or bonds.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was given a stark reminder of wars present and past on Wednesday in Berlin.
Prior to his first bilateral meeting with Germany’s new chancellor, Trudeau spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, telling him Canada will ship more specialized military equipment.
The federal cabinet has approved an additional $50 million in military and humanitarian aid, Trudeau said during a media availability at the German Chancellery building on Wednesday. Trudeau also invited Zelensky to address Parliament virtually — something the embattled president has agreed to do.
