Canada slaps Russia with new sanctions

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced Tuesday that Canada will be adding to the sanctions placed against Russia, a move designed to further condemn the actions of the Putin regime in eastern Ukraine. Five Russian entities, as well as one financial institution, have been added to Canada’s current economic sanctions, with four “senior Russian individuals” added to Canada’s travel ban, Baird revealed. The Department of Foreign Affairs released a statement, adding that Canada has placed “additional restrictions to the terms under which designated Russian banks can access capital markets, by prohibiting the issuance of any loan carrying a maturation date greater than 30 days.”

Canada will never recognize Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. And these latest developments certainly give us pause for what the Russian Federation could do next.

John Baird, foreign affairs minister

Meanwhile, Ukraine ratified a sweeping agreement with the European Union on Tuesday—an issue at the heart of the Russia-West crisis over its future—and sought to blunt the independence drive of Russian-backed separatists by offering them temporary and limited self-rule. But though Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko savoured a historic triumph with parliament’s seal of approval for the EU deal, his peacemaking efforts drew derision from separatists and some mainstream politicians, while his military reported three more deaths of Ukrainian servicemen despite an 11-day ceasefire. “No nation has ever paid such a high price to become Europeans,” Poroshenko told parliament referring to the bloody conflict that has gripped Ukraine since his predecessor, former President Viktor Yanukovich, walked away from the EU pact last November in favour of closer ties with Ukraine’s former Soviet master, Russia. The historic deal comes just hours before Poroshenko’s scheduled arrival in Ottawa, ahead of his Wednesday afternoon address to Canada’s Parliament.