Commentary

Over the past several months, Canada-Russia relations, ignited by the crisis in Ukraine, have become increasingly strained. Prime Minister Harper and the Government of Canada, backed by the Parliament (opposition parties included) and with strong support from the Canadian society at large, adopted the most principled position within G7 countries on the issue. Canada has been pushing its Western and NATO allies to force Vladimir Putin to back off Ukraine, thus restoring the stability of Europe and the global balance of power...

The ICSU condemns the horrific terrorist attack on Malaysian Airlines’ flight MH17 and the resulting murder of 298 innocent passengers and crew. We express our sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims. The incriminating evidence points to Russia as the state sponsor of this terrorist act since Russia alone supplied and operated the BUK SA 11 missile battery along with radar and logistical support by the Russian military used to shooting the civilian airliner by its sponsored terrorists in Eastern Ukraine. International social media monitors noted that the terrorists themselves took credit for the attack on their Twitter account and Ukrainian Intelligence Services revealed a taped intercepted conversation between the separatist terrorists and their military advisors in Moscow admitting to the destruction of the Malaysian Airways’ flight...

The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) expresses condolences to the families and friends of the victims travelling on a Malaysian passenger airliner from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by Russia-backed terrorists. The flight was carrying 295 passengers from various countries...

The editorial page of The Washington Post is warning of the folly of appeasing Vladimir Putin, saying: When Russia was roiled by uncertainty and change in the 1990s, and even into the 2000s, it made sense to engage, and engagement did plenty of good. But something fundamental has changed. Mr. Putin has suffocated democracy, forged an economic model based on crony capitalism and carried out subterfuge and subversion against Ukraine. It is misplaced to suggest that all will be well if we can just sell Russia more airplanes and sneakers...

After several hundred years of statelessness, neglect, and battles for independence,Ukrainere-emerged in history with a global tragedy - the disaster at the Chornobyl nuclear plant in 1986. Later Ukraine set two important historic precedents, that positioned Ukraine in the international media spotlight – these were the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity known as EuroMaidan of 2013-2014. The victories of both of these two revolutions testify to both the strengths and the weaknesses of Ukrainians. Why was the second revolution necessary? Only because the first did not yield the desired results. Today Ukrainians are to fulfill their ability to build an effective state. To this day Ukrainian people is not looked upon as a nation-state that can fend for itself, not byRussia, and not by the West...

Excuse the lurid title, but it’s only a variant of a headline that appeared many years ago in a New York tabloid: “Mother Dies, as Baby Coos.” I can’t speak for the accuracy of that headline, but today’s variant is, alas, all too valid. Because the fact is that Ukrainian soldiers are dying at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s terrorist hirelings as European states—and the European Union—are engaging the Kremlin with baby talk and diplo-babble...

Xenophobia exists almost everywhere, based as it typically is in a sense of how different other peoples are and how distinctive one’s own is. And it has often been used by political leaders to mobilize their populations or distract their attention from domestic problems. But Russian Ukrainophobia is different in three important ways, Olga Mikhaylova writes today on UAinfo.org, and those differences in turn have serious consequences for the future of Russian-Ukrainian relations and should dictate the world’s reaction to what Moscow is doing...

The Wall Street Journal last week (June26 and 27) carried a paid advertisement by the presidents and CEO's of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce (USCOC) under the title “America's Interests Are at Stake in Russia and Ukraine.” This lobbying effort against sanctions concluded with a summarizing statement, “U.S. workers and industries pay the cost of unilateral economic sanctions that have little hope of increasing the United States' ability to achieve its foreign policy goal.”...

Today, in a shipyard in northwest France, two warships are receiving finishing touches. These ships are more than twice the length of a football field. They each can carry 700 troops, 60 armored vehicles, four landing craft, and 16 helicopters. They represent the state of the art in amphibious assault vessels. And when these two Mistral-class ships leave port in France, they’ll sail to Russia where they will enhance the military strength of a nation that forcibly annexed Crimea and is posing increasing challenges to Ukraine and countries across Eastern Europe...

Dear Mr. President: Best intentions do not lead always to desired results. Such is the case with sanctions that we have been imposing thus far, intended to stem Russian aggression in Ukraine. The most recent imposed against seven Russian separatists in Ukraine are a striking example. The seven sanctioned are all deserving candidates, yet while they may be part of the current problem, they are not part of the solution. These individuals are essentially hired thugs for whom killing or the likelihood of being killed is a daily proposition. Denial of entry into theUnited Statesor freezing their assets, if any, here is as irrelevant asUkraine's President's recent proposal for dialogue with them...