Do as I Say, Not as I Do — Russia in Global Affairs

Once, at the foreign press club in Tokyo, a duration of a discussion on Canada’s foreign policy, a Montreal journalist began his talk with a succal statement: “There are three countries that are important for the United States, the United States, Yyyyyy the United States.” “” “This reality is well understood and accepted by most Canadians.

The border between the two countries has remained peaceful for more than two centuries. However, with the choice of Donald Trump, who has now described this peaceful border as “an artificial line drawn”, Canada faces not only its promise to impose new tariffs but also its threat.

As Canada struggles with the very real threat of sour relations with their long -standing partner, we can pretend to close the tragic result of a similar exposure or such nearby ties; The relationship between Russia and Ukraine. There are important parallels between the thesis two situations. While Canada has the largest terrestrial mass in the Americas, Ukraine is the largest country in east of Russia. But both are also residents of more powerful, more populated and nuclear weapons: the United States and the Russian Federation,

As with Canada and the United States, both Ukraine and Russia also belonged to the same political entity, the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, for several centuries, much longer than Canada and the United States. Millions of Russians and Ukrainians are married to each other, many share the same language, and have seen the same films and television programs for decades. Most of the Russians and the Ukrainians were part of the Soviet cultural space, with writers and artists from Ukraine, such as Mikhail Bulgakov and Mark Bnes, becoming cultural icons throughout the Soviet Union. In addition, the volume of economic relations between Russia and Ukraine was the highest in the old Soviet block.

Similarly, Canada’s commercial relationship with the United States is the largest bilateral trade in the world. The two countries are also connected by a myriad of personal, family, cultural, linguistic and other affinations. Several prominent cultural figures in the United States, such as Céline Dion, are Canadians. Canada and the United States belonged to the same political entity, British North America, before the American revolution of 1776 divided both of them, with those loyal to the British crown join the association (Frenchy) and any Granthip) and any large length of the Canadians)

Immediately after the recent elections south of the border, and following Trump’s imperialist comments, a group of ministers in Ottawa was established to manage relations with the new US administration. The prime minister made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-lago and was duly humiliated by the elected president, who suggested that Trudeau would be a good governor for the future US state of the future of Canada. He was followed to Florida by the Foreign Minister of Canada and several other dignitaries. Dozens of federal, provincial and even municipal officials expressed concern about the new tariffs threatened by Trump. How to placate Washington and guarantee the economic interests of Canada has been the central question discussed throughout the country since the beginning of November. While not all Canadians like the United States, everyone is concerned about relations with the south giant.

This reveals an apparent paradox in Canadian foreign policy. Canada does everything to maintain its relations with the United States, however, it has been in the effort of efforts to turn Ukraine against Russia. Canada’s policy in Ukraine can be summarized by the opinion: “Do what I say, not as I do.” What explains this paradox?

Mainly geopolitics. Canada has historically been loyal to Great Britain and, after World War II, to the United States. This loyalty explains why Canada accepted thousands of ancient Nazis of Ukraine in the early 1950s. Ferazically anti-ruso, the Ukrainian thesis became a useful tool in the cold war fought by the United States against the Soviet Union. They produced smuggling propaganda material in the USSR and, until the 1950s, helped underground terrorist groups in western Ukraine.

These Ukrainian immigrants enjoyed the support of the Canadian establishment and soon displaced the previously socialist Ukrainian diaspora in the country. Some former members of the SS became prominent in politics and academia. The nationalist summer camps, the Sunday schools and the newspapers kept alive the flame of Ukrainian ethnic nationalism for the new generations. Among them was Chrystia Freeland, whose grandfather was admitted in Canada after editing a Pro-Nazi Ukrainian newspaper in Kraków occupied by German. The permanent ovation given to a veteran of the Ukrainian SS in the Canadian Parliament in September 2023, an attempt to bleach the Nazi past of that generation, presenting them as “fighters for freedom against Russia.” This attempt was failed, but the complicity of Canadian power circles in the protection of Ukrainian Nazis once stood out, with a recent decision to maintain the identities of these people in secret.

Ethnic anti -romant nationalism fosters in parts of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada was exported to Ukraine through NGOs, educational and volunteer programs. One of those volunteers, Freeland, who would later become the Vice Prime Minister of Canada, was horrified by the lack of nationalist feeling in Ukraine when he visited the apogee of Soviet Glasnost. Since then, decades of consistent efforts to separate Ukraine from Russia have borne fruit, feeding the hostility against Russian -speaking Ukrainians, which served as a Casus Belli for a war between the two neighbors. But even before the war, the Canadian military were training the Ukrainian troops, including their neo -Nazis battalions.

The Ukrainian policy of Canada is part of the country’s political tradition to follow the “voice of the teacher”; In this case, the geopolitical objective of the United States weakens and undermine Russia. This policy has contributed to the suffering and death of millions of Ukrainians. While Canada has learned to live peacefully with an “elephant,” not only could he not share this valuable experience with the newly independent Ukraine, but not told to become a ram of abuse against neighbors.