Former ambassador to Russia briefs CBC on grim human rights situation under Putin

 It's grim alright. Former ambassador Sarah Taylor painted a bleak picture... not for herself, but for the 140 million Russians who don't have the freedom to escape Bad Vlad's dystopian shithole.

Sarah shared some profound insights that brought into focus the scale of Putin's relentless disinformation war. It is truly mind-boggling! For example, for over fifty years the communist dictator Nikita Khrushchev had a completely bogus rep as a reformer, when in reality he was one of the worst they ever had till Putin came along. All that hogwash about Nikita K freeing millions of political prisoners from the Siberian Gulag? Lies lies lies!!!

But the lying didn't really take off till Putin seized the Kremlin  via an obviously fraudulent "democratic" election featuring, literally, some two dozen alleged political parties! Ya, as if! And the disinformation war against the West went completely bonkers after Alexei Navalny returned from his all-expenses-paid education at Yale and began asking questions about where Bad Vlad had squirreled away the billions, nay, tens of billions... double nay nay, HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS Putin has pilfered from his longsuffering people.

At great risk to her personal safety, Taylor made the courageous decision, along with the ambassadors from France, UK, Germany, and USA, to attend Navalny's funeral. There, her heart was almost broken by the sight of "many" thousands of Muscovites who defied Putin with their presence. Although CBC didn't use the phrase "tens of thousands" in their reporting at the time, she ventured that in her estimation it might very well have been possible!

Her interview with Matt Galloway was a real eye-opener, and another job well done by our public broadcaster. Bravo Matt and Sarah!

Meanwhile our PM was over in Ankara to sign trade and defence deals with like-minded NATO ally  Turkiye. It's a lot like Canada, except for a couple of minor things... for example, while they've got twice our overall population, they've got 10x the prison population! And there is an argument to be made our erstwhile NATO ally holds more political prisoners than Russia! The Sultan's human rights bona fides may be a little over-ripe, but any port will do in this storm of authoritarian terror launched by Putin and his minions in Tehran and North Korea!