Bad Vlad threatens Ukie sovereignty again

The Globe and Mail's Chief Internet Correspondent offers up a scary headline on the front page today; "Ukrainian Border Troops Wait For Putin's Big Push." Yup, it's all about the Russian troop buildup you've been reading about for the last couple weeks. Here are a few salient background points missing from MacKinnon's narrative. Remember, this is happening as major NATO war games are about to begin, literally within sight of the Russian border.

- On 24.03.21 it was reported that Zelensky signed a strategy paper confirming that the retaking of Crimea, by force if necessary, remains a priority for the government of Ukraine.

- On 02.04.21 US President Biden called Zelensky to offer America's "unwavering support."

- On 06.04.21 NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg assured Zelensky of NATO's unconditional support.

Given the sordid history of US interference in the countries of the former Soviet Union, and especially Ukraine, the Russian leadership prudently sent a signal to the effect that any pending hanky-panky would be painfully counterproductive for the Ukrainian side, and who can blame them? Although you'd never know it from MacKinnon's article, by 09.04.21 Zelensky had got the message loud and clear. Here is a quote from General Ruslan Khomchak, the same guy quoted by MacKinnon, five days before the Globe story appeared, and a mere two weeks after Zelensky had triggered the "crisis;"

Liberation of Donbass by force will lead to mass deaths of  civilians and servicemen, and this is unacceptable for Kiev.

By the 9th, the Ukrainians had smelt the coffee, and were effectively standing down. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the G7 nations, including Canada, releasing a joint statement declaring their "unwavering support for Ukraine" on the 12th! 

America and her flunky states, and their captive media, salivate at the prospect of fighting the Russians... right down to the last Ukrainian.

Canada to ship feminist sniper rifles to Ukraine

We know that these are "feminist" sniper rifles because Canada has a feminist foreign policy, as Sunnydaze Trudeau never tires of reminding us.

This deal was allegedly conditional on Ukraine making progress on cleaning up the rampant corruption that permeates their political culture. I guess someone somewhere told somebody at Global Affairs the clean-up is going swimmingly, and that's good enough for us.

Here's a discussion about Ukrainian corruption in Foreign Policy. It's telling that the Americans are reluctant to send advanced military hardware to Ukraine for fear that the thieves and scoundrels of the Verkhovna Rada would sell it on to their supposed arch-enemy, the Russians.

In spite of their misgivings, the Americans did approve the sale of $40 million worth of US made sniper rifles last December. Those wouldn't be feminist sniper rifles though, so we still have the moral high ground.

By my estimation the US and Canadian deals combined represent something in the order of 4000+ sniper rifles, to be used primarily against the Donbass separatists. Even if only half the shipments find their way to the Russian mafia, that's still going to translate into many more dead Ukrainians.

How does arming one side in a civil war further our standing as a champion for human rights everywhere?