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National Defence committee If you want to imagine analogous situations, I think you should think back to when there was a Warsaw Pact and imagine how the United States would react were the Warsaw Pact suddenly to be in Prince Edward Island. From a Russian point of view, this is strategic territory and alw
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee It wasn't Ukraine that threw out the EU agreement. It was literally the crowd in the Maidan. Ukraine had agreed to a 10-month extension.
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee Read what happened on February 21 in Kiev.
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee Well, information and propaganda wars are raging on both sides. When I said that this cold war we're back in is more dangerous than the last one, one of the reasons is we're now in a quite frightening age of cyberwarfare and cyber-weapons, and hearts and minds are more targets th
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee No, not at all. I don't think there have ever been demonstrations on Parliament Hill that compare with the months of demonstrations that took place prior to the last ovethrow, and I—
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee What I was saying is that nothing on our Parliament Hill has been anything like comparable to those demonstrations, not in all of our history. The point I was making was simply that in terms of economic prospects for Ukraine, this kind of political instability obviously isn't hel
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee I don't think they have an interest in changing that border. The point is that Russia has an enduring, eternal interest in the geopolitical orientation of all of Ukraine. That's my point.
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee I think Kiev lost the loyalty of a critical measure of the Crimea and the Donbass. Yes, there was an invasion—those little green men were Russian—but there was also that loss of loyalty.
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee Crimea was taken without a shot. Too many in the Donbass, and certainly in Crimea—
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee I'd only add that in terms of the economy, one thing to look at is whether Ukraine can win any confidence of essential foreign investors, because there's certainly investment required to make progress in the economy. One thing to look at very closely right this week, right thes
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee To take measures of progress with respect to the violence is simply to try to reduce the violence and the war going on. No one wants a frozen conflict, but a frozen conflict, as Paul Grod mentioned, is better than one that's hot and raging, as this one is now. A frozen conflict m
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee On that question of going back on one's word and the usefulness of agreements, let me just say that from a Russian point of view, there was a promise made at the reunification of Germany that NATO would not move one inch east. That promise has been broken, with serious security i
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee Well, if the sanctions are going to remain and you take off the carrot of removing them, because they are costly, we could respond to Russia's invitations to co-operate more in the Arctic. We could respond to Russia's invitations to co-operate more against terrorism. There is an
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee There have been two iterations of the Minsk agreement. It remains what's on the table in terms of the way forward, but both parties are saying, “After you.” The Russians are saying, “We won't act until you have the elections and the decentralization that were part of the Minsk ag
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal
National Defence committee Mr. Grod has been to that frontier between Russia and Ukraine much more recently than I have, so I can't answer that question on the current status there. To relate back to the notion of UN intervention, though, my own view is that there would need to be UN people both on that f
October 23rd, 2017Committee meeting
Chris Westdal