Ottawa ‘exacerbated tragedy in Ukraine’, author who confronted Canadian FM tells RT — Analysis
Yves Engler says the West only cares about flooding warzone with weapons to “fight and die” in a military conflict with Russia
Yves Engler is an activist and author who confronted Melanie Joly, Canada’s Foreign Minister, at a public function. Engler said to RT that Ottawa makes the Russia-Ukraine war worse by sending weapons from Kiev.
Engler interrupted Joly’s speech at the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, accusing the minister of “escalating the war,” before he was escorted out. Joly didn’t speak out about the incident.
The author told RT that he is against Russia’s offensive. “But Canada was more aggressive in pushing NATO expansion in Eastern Europe in the 1990s even than the US government was,” he added. “Even amidst the growing tensions in January, Minister Joly doubled down, saying ‘yes, we think Ukraine should still be part of NATO.’”
The Canadian government has taken all kinds of very belligerent positions that have really exacerbated the tragedy we’re seeing [in Ukraine].
Russia has consistently said that it viewed NATO’s eastward expansion as a threat. President Vladimir Putin listed Kiev’s aspirations to join the US-led military bloc as one of the reasons Moscow attacked the neighboring country on February 24.
Moscow requested that NATO and the US provide legal binding guarantees that they will not be moving closer to Russian borders last fall. NATO replied that it will not drop its ‘open-door policy’, which means that anyone can apply for membership at any moment.
Engler thinks that the West is supplying weapons to Ukraine in order to be able to assert its dominance. “fueling the conflict,” rather than helping to resolve it.
“The decision-makers in Ottawa and Washington very much view Ukraine as a proxy against Russia. They would like to see something equivalent to what happened in Afghanistan during the 1980s,” the author said. “What that would mean effectively is Canada, the US and others pumping in endless amounts of weapons until the last Ukrainian was willing to fight and die.”
NATO seeks to “control security arrangements in Europe,” and is partly motivated by arms sales, Engler believes. Engler stated that Canada is a good example of this. “completely integrated” into Washington’s weapons exports thanks to defense production sharing deals.
Canada’s military aid to Kiev includes portable anti-tank systems, rocket launchers, hand grenades and ammunition, as well as body armor, night vision gear and field rations for soldiers.
Joly stated Monday that officials “have exhausted inventory from the Canadian Armed Forces,” and were studying “additional options” to send more weapons to Ukraine.
“We need to make sure Ukrainians win this war. Vladimir Putin cannot prevail,” the minister said the next day. “This is a question that is existential to the West and the world’s stability.”
Moscow attacked Ukraine following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. To regulate these areas within Ukraine, the German- and French-brokered protocol had been established.
Russia is now requesting that Ukraine declare itself to be neutral, and that it will not join NATO. Kiev denies that Russia planned to seize the two republics with force and claims the Russian offensive was not provoked.
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