We witness, horrified, the deluge of fire, mass destruction and terror poured on Ukraine, its sovereignty violated.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Vladimir Putin’s cynicism, his greed for conquest send shivers down the spine. It will lose, on all fronts, including the gas monopoly from which the European countries which depend on it want to get out now, at all costs. But first, the confidence of the Russian people crumbles as it deceives it, oppresses it, represses it, leads it to the edge of the abyss. This senseless, fratricidal conflict will result in a heavy responsibility in the face of history, that of crimes against humanity.
The principal will be cursed for his cruelty. Starting with the families of all these young soldiers, conscripts, from the most disadvantaged regions and communities of Russia, whom he made believe that they were going to liberate, “denazify” Ukraine as heroes. These sacrificed will be thousands not to return.
To take the full measure of the carnage, there is Mariupol, this popular seaside town which welcomed, again last year, with open arms, a number of Russian holidaymakers. Here it is, a martyred city, razed to the ground, its buildings gutted.
A hundred thousand people are still stuck there, no longer have a place to take shelter from the deadly fire. Without water, without food, without electricity, it is the coldest, most terrifying and most hopeless spring imaginable.
More than 10 million Ukrainians, mostly women, children and vulnerable elders, have had to flee. The columns of refugees, incessant at the borders, expose shattered lives.
I was moved by a child from the Michaëlle-Jean public elementary school choir in Ottawa, Maya Poslavskyy. The 11-year-old girl, seeing the lapel pin adorned with the Ukrainian and Canadian flags on my jacket, a souvenir of the State visit that I, Governor General of Canada, made to Ukraine, she threw herself into my arms to say to myself: “I am from Ukraine, my grandparents managed to escape, they arrived in Romania and should join us soon in Canada. It’s awful! We are scared ! »
I cradled her to chase away the anguish and her sigh of comfort did not escape me. It was at Ottawa City Hall, where Mayor Jim Watson had chosen to give me the keys to the capital, on the occasion of International Women’s Day. My first words were for Ukraine: “Mr. Mayor, how about the City of Ottawa appealing to the mayors of other capitals of the world, for a mobilization in solidarity with the cities of Ukraine, the populations, refugees? Such a call would be extraordinary coming from the Canadian capital where so many people like me live who have had to flee horror, repression, insecurity, conflicts. Mayor Watson welcomed the idea and made the call, starting with the capitals of the G7 countries and countries neighboring Ukraine. I’m moved. I think of Maya and her grandparents.
It is the whole region of Central and Eastern Europe which wonders, after Ukraine, which other country will be attacked?
Everyone trembles in the face of Putin’s threats to use his nuclear arsenal and chemical weapons. So many precautions taken by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which, in order not to be seen as a party to this war, refused to grant President Volodymyr Zelensky a no-fly zone decreed over Ukraine to protect populations from bombs and missiles dropped by Russian army planes. Just as the European Union (EU) did not accept the president’s plea to activate Ukraine’s application for membership.
There is the fear that Putin will retaliate and that Europe will descend into all-out war.
Will the heavy economic sanctions, including against the oligarchs, the decision of international companies to withdraw from Russia and the suspension of visas be enough to make Vladimir Putin back down? For the moment, die-hard, he is playing everyone, with a stroke of intimidation. He loves the acclaim from Mali and the Central African Republic, where he was able to deploy heavily armed mercenaries, who act under the epithet Wagner, positioned as liberators for so-called security and anti-terrorist operations. In Lebanon, we have seen demonstrations by members of Hezbollah brandishing signs bearing the image of the master of the Kremlin as a mark of support.
In 2009, I was in Kyiv, Lviv and Chernobyl, at the invitation of Viktor Yushchenko, leader of the “Orange Revolution”, who was President of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010, and whom we had officially received in Ottawa. Certainly, he had come to express his gratitude to Canada, the first Western country to have recognized the independence of Ukraine at the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, to also salute the million Canadians of Ukrainian origin.
But what was at stake for Yushchenko was more the campaign he was already leading in favor of Ukraine joining NATO.
“Time is running out,” he told us, “Ukraine needs NATO’s armed shield and deterrent against the threats and plan of Vladimir Putin, who wants to revive a kind of new empire, a new USSR, but which would bear the name of Russia. It’s an obsessive plan. »
He had obtained the support of the Harper government and of Washington, promises remained, however, without follow-up, in front of the fierce opposition of the Kremlin which supported Viktor Yanukovych. The pro-Russian will be elected, after significant electoral fraud, in 2010. He will announce his refusal in 2013 to sign the association agreement of Ukraine with the European Union in favor of an agreement with Russia. The rest, we remember, the waves of protest, the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians revolted by this decision, especially young people, students, artists, full of dreams and all the hopes, eager to open up to the world , claiming their “revolution of dignity”, until the confrontation, in February 2014, in Maidan Square, Kyiv, with government forces and the army, authorized to fire live ammunition, which killed more than 80 people. Dismissed by Parliament, Yanukovych will take refuge in Russia as one returns to the fold. Rumors are circulating that Putin would think of putting him back on the stage at the head of Ukraine.
The Ukrainians are far from having capitulated.