Kyiv -- Washington -- We Have a Deal!

"We have formed a version of the agreement that provides mutually beneficial conditions for both countries."

"This is an agreement in which the United States notes its commitment to promoting long-term peace in Ukraine and recognizes the contribution that Ukraine has made to global security by giving up its nuclear arsenal."

"[Among terms of the agreement are] full ownership and control [with resources staying with Ukraine]." 

"All resources on our territory and in territorial waters belong to Ukraine. It is the Ukrainian state that determines what and where to extract. "

"Subsoil remains under Ukrainian ownership – this is clearly established in the Agreement."

Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister (Economy Minister) Yulia Svyrydenko

 

"As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war. [This is a] historic economic partnership."

"This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term."

"And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent 

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko sign a deal that gives the United States preferential access to Ukraine's mineral resources.

U.S. Department of the Treasury/Reuters

Finally, Ukraine has signed an agreement with the United States allowing Washington access to the country's critical minerals along with other natural resources. Kyiv had long held out for guarantees of security of its sovereign territory to accompany any such agreement. And this is what it now feels it has secured with this altered agreement. President Zelenskyy refused to sign any agreement that left out the vital assurance of protection from Russia's ongoing territorial designs on Ukraine. His adamant refusal to sign anything that left out this critical assurance angered and frustrated U.S. President Donald Trump but in the end the Ukrainian demands were unavoidable and were finally met.

 

Kyiv now feels a degree of assurance that the agreement will go a long way to securing the long-term support it needs for its existential defence against Russia's territorial imperative. Previous versions of the agreement that merited Ukraine's refusal had placed Kyiv as a junior partner in the agreement, with Washington accessing unprecedented rights to Ukraine's prized natural resources. Not yet ratified by the Ukrainian parliament, the last rendition of the agreement establishes a reconstruction fund for the embattled country that Ukraine's cabinet views as a potential insurance of future U.S. military assistance.

 

The original such agreement had been upset on the cusp of being signed when a tense Oval Office meeting between President Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy erupted into a shouting match of accusations and protestations of intent. The undiplomatic and humiliating treatment of President Zelenskyy by his Washington hosts was unprecedented. Since then a prolonged period of adjusted re-engagement finally resulted in Washington heeding Ukraine's position more clearly and Ukraine prevailing in its efforts to have President Trump fully cognizant of realities.

 

US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky openly clashed in the White House on February 28, when they were due to sign an earlier draft of the minerals agreement.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

This agreement of benefit to both sides, includes oil and natural gas along with rare earth elements, but does not include resources representing a current source of revenue for Ukraine. Where President Trump had originally demanded that profits from new investments under the deal be used to pay the U.S. for its years of material support in providing military assets to Ukraine during its war with Russia, that is no longer the case. Full ownership of the resources remains with Ukraine which will determine what can b e extracted and where it can be extracted.

 

Some 55 minerals are included specifically in the text but more can be included. Critical minerals such as titanium, lithium and uranium are included in the agreement, along with a group of 17 elements essential to a variety of consumer technology such a s cellphones, hard drives and electric and hybrid vehicle production. Elements such as lanthanum, cerium and scandium are also listed. Ukraine is expected to contribute 50 percent of future profits from natural resources into a fund supported through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. 

President Zelenskyy rejected the initial Trump administration deal where Washington expected $500 billion in profit from exploited minerals -- stating he would never sign off on an agreement "that will be paid off by ten generations of Ukrainians". Ukraine's rare earth industry's potential is not yet clear since geological data has yet to be assembled of the mineral reserves scattered across the  vast Ukrainian terrain. Ukraine's reserves of titanium, a key component in the aerospace, medical and automotive industries are thought to be among Europe's largest natural deposits. As well as some of Europe's largest known reserves of lithium in Ukraine; required for the production of batteries, ceramics and glass.

 

Nothing during times of violent conflict, is as simple as it may appear. According to data from We Build Ukraine, a Kyiv-based think tank, an estimated 40 percent of Ukraine's metallic mineral resources are under Russian occupation, and therefore inaccessible. All the more reason for the United States to protect its investment in Ukraine under this agreement by enforcing a 'hands off' warning to Moscow in its intentions to continue annexing Ukrainian territory to be absorbed into Greater Russia. How and whether serious negotiations take place between Ukraine and Russia forcing Ukraine to cede territory to Russian aggression is a matter for another place and another time. 

 

An excavator mines rare earth materials in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine in February 2025, as companies continue operations despite the war.  Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images

 

 

White-Washing the 14th Waffen SS Galicia

"I don't understand this upside-down universe where people here admire the Waffen SS and somehow that's OK."

"It doesn't embarrass the people at my university very much that they have a [group] that has been laundering Waffen SS reputations and funds for years now."

Karyn Ball, professor, Holocaust scholar, University of Alberta

Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22. The University of Alberta is returning endowment funds from the family of Hunka, a Ukrainian man whose military service was linked to the Nazis.Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

After professors at University of Alberta lodged complaints that the University continues to engage in white-washing Nazi crimes, a panel scheduled to discuss the Waffen SS was quietly cancelled. A number of online discussions have been held at the university since an episode involving Ukrainian-Canadian veteran Yaroslav Hunka who served in the Waffen SS was invited to the House of Commons on September 22 on the occasion of Ukraine's Jewish President addressing Parliament. The-then Speaker of the House, ignorant of the Nazi connection, invited the man, characterizing him as a Ukrainian 'hero'.

Despite reality, speakers at the online discussions claim that the 14th Waffen SS Galicia was never involved in Nazi war crimes, attributing such claims to Russian disinformation. When, once again the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the university planned another online discussion for October 14, university professors launched yet another protest. Complaints were filed to the university's administration charging the CIUS in whitewashing Nazi collaborators and war crimes. 

The Hunka family had endowed the organized event with $30,000, before it was cancelled. The Waffen SS Galicia was involved in massacres of civilians during the Second World War, and used as well by the Nazis to crush an uprising in Slovakia. The university's vice-president of academics announced the Hunka family funding would be returned to them. "On behalf of the university, I want to express our commitment to address antisemitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present", she stated.

Laurie Adkin, a political scientist at the university, called for an investigation of funding and activities of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Recently an article in  media outlet Progress Report revealed that the university took money from Hunka, as well as from other Waffen SS members, accepting as well funds from the estate of Volodymyr Kubijovyc, a Nazi collaborator who founded Waffen SS Galicia, advocating for ethnic cleansing, for a Ukraine without Jews or Poles.

 

Monument to the people slaughtered by the 14th Waffen-SS at Huta Pienacka. Image via Stako

 

Another veteran of the Waffen SS Galicia division, Peter Savaryn, had served at the University of Alberta as chancellor from 1982 to 1986. He helped to fund the CIUS and had been awarded the Order of Canada in 1987. Among nationalist Ukrainian-Canadians, members of Waffen SS Galicia are viewed as heroes, reflecting their battles against Soviet forces, at that time in the war fighting the Nazis with the Allied coalition. Oakville, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta both host monuments in honour of the Ukrainian SS troops.

There is a sharp distinction from that group to the 40,000 Ukrainian-Canadians who were members of Canada's military, fighting the Nazis, for whom no monuments have ever been erected in honour of their loyalty to democratic values and Canada. A 1980s study of war criminals in Canada found 600 former members of SS Galicia still resident in Canada. "The Division was an SS division and technically all of its officers and senior NCOs are liable for trial as war criminals", a 1948 British government report noted.

"The University of Alberta says it is reviewing other donations it has received after returning $30,000 from the family of Yaroslav Hunka, a Waffen SS veteran who got a standing ovation in Parliament during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month."

"The university is facing calls to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in endowments in the names of Ukrainians linked to the Waffen SS Galicia division, who were admitted to Canada after the Second World War. They include an endowment of about $430,000 in the name of Volodymyr Kubijovych, who played a key role in the SS unit’s establishment in 1943."

The Globe and Mail

Left image: Peter Savaryn (left standing) and Volodymyr Kubijovyč (center sitting) pictured here at the 1976 contract signing between the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Shevchenko Scientific Society of Europe to collaborate on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Right image: Volodymyr Kubijovyč (circled in red) gives a Nazi salute at the 14th Waffen-SS recruitment ceremony in 1943.

Justice Sought in the Downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752

Family members who lost loved ones on Flight PS752 almost two years ago conducted their own probe into the aircraft's destruction. (Social media video via Reuters)

"Today's legal action reflects our unwavering commitment to achieving transparency, justice and accountability for the families of the victims."

"[Canada, the U.K., Sweden and Ukraine argue that Iran] failed to conduct an impartial, transparent, and fair criminal investigation and prosecution consistent with international law."

"[Iran withheld or destroyed evidence, blamed other countries and low level Revolutionary Guard personnel], threatened and harassed the families of the victims seeking justice [and failed to report details of the incident to the International Civil Aviation Organization."

Joint statement, Canada, United Kingdom, Sweden, Ukraine

A case was launched against Iran at the highest court of the United Nations over the 2020 downing of an Ukrainian passenger jet causing the death of all 176 passengers and crew. The four countries involved now urge the International Court of Justice to rule that Iran shot down the Ukraine International Airlines plane illegally, and to order an apology from Tehran in addition to paying compensation to the families of the victims, many of them Iranian-Canadians.

Travelling from Tehran to Kyiv on January 8, 2020, Flight PS752 was shot down soon after takeoff from Tehran's international airport. There had been flights earlier in the day and none had experienced anything out of the ordinary. Everything appeared to be in order, the airport functioning as normal even though Tehran itself was on guard, awaiting a potential strike from the United States. Yet the skies were not shut down as a temporary caution and matters proceeded as normal.

 

For that matter, Russia has never been called to account for its role in shooting down a Malaysian passenger jet in 2014 while it was flying over eastern Ukraine. Ethnic Russian Ukrainians supported by the Russian military in the Donbas in a conflict with Ukraine. The Dutch-led team of investigators reported in 2016 that a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from separatist-controlled east Ukraine       originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation, transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area and the launch system returned to Russia afterwards.

 

Tehran had denied responsibility for the mid-air explosion of the Ukraine Airlines flight for days, until indisputable evidence was presented forcing Iran to admit to having 'inadvertently' shot the plane down by two missiles, finally claiming its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard had thought the passenger jet was an incoming U.S. missile, though the directions were in complete opposition; the plane in flight away from Tehran, whereas a missile would be approaching Tehran from the opposite direction.

 

A total of 175 people lost their lives, among them 55 Canadian-Iranian citizens, another 30 were permanent residents of Canada, plus dozens of Iranian students travelling to Canada on student visas. In Iran, Iranian citizens reacted with fury at their government, mourning the loss of innocent lives. Protests were quickly put down by the government in Tehran. Iranian authorities' insistence that an air defence operator mistook the Boeing 737-800 for an American cruise missile was less than palatable.

This year an Iranian court sentenced an air defence commander they claim was responsible for the loss of so many lives, to 13 years' imprisonment. The four countries that filed the case with the world court in The Hague consider that prosecution nothing less than "a sham and opaque trial". Last week, Iran filed a case against Canada linked to the shooting down of the Ukraine passenger jet, where it accused Canada of flouting state immunity when it permitted relatives of terrorism victims to seek reparations from the Islamic Republic.

Iran is such a law-abiding country under its theocratic regime, which nurtures proxy terrorist groups that act on its behalf. But it is not itself above criminal acts, readily identifiable as when this week alone it attempted to seize two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, firing shots at one of the tankers. Iranian naval vessels backed off once the U.S. Navy intervened. It has, in the last two years, seized five commercial vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz, which it claims is not international waters, but its sovereign territory.

A vigil  in Toronto, Canada, on the anniversary of the tragedy   Reuters

 

 

The Symbiosis of Two Great Wheat Growing Nations

"Kyiv is the birthplace of the Slavs, and arguably, Ukraine is the starting point. It's really only when the Russian Empire captures this region and takes it over that it becomes a kind of colony of Russia."

"A lot of history is written about generals and battles and famous men who produced a new kind of stirrup or something like that in the Middle Ages."

"And it's really, I think, the men and women who experimented with wheat, seeds and cross-pollination hundreds and hundreds of years ago that are responsible for our survival."

"And the stirrup is not nearly as important in the long run than all that food experimentation that was done, particularly along the Black Sea."

"For Putin [whose master's thesis was on strategic resources in Russia and Ukraine], it's all about resources and always has been. [Russia's] elemental desire [to dominate the Black Sea is important to understanding the conflict]."

"Russia's future has always depended on control of the Black Sea region. When it was the Russian Empire, it was the foreign exchange Russia got from Ukraine that made it possible for it to expand. And then even in the Soviet period, it was Ukrainian grain that was a big part of what held the Eastern Bloc together."

Scott Reynolds Nelson, historian, author: Oceans of Grain

"[The single spring wheat plant Fife received] was not some mutant produced in Canada. It belonged to a variety cultivated in the middle of Europe and was accidentally present as a single grain in this shipment of winter wheat."

"Only because of a strange and very unlikely accident did Ukrainian wheat, in the form of a single grain find its way to Canada -- and not to the address of some experimental farm or famous breeder, but to the field of an ordinary farmer."

The late research biologist Stephan Symko

"The introduction of Marquis wheat is one of the greatest practical triumphs that Canada has ever had, one that is perennially fruitful, not impoverishing but ever increasing the wealth of our country and making it a better land to live in."

"But this is not all, for Marquis extends its blessings far beyond the bounds of this country, not merely to the United States of America where it is also grown on a large scale, but to the Old World. Especially in Europe, to which it is borne by a great fleet of ships across the broad Atlantic, it adds to the quantity and improves the quality of the daily bread of millions of toilers who have never herd its name."

A.H. Reginald Buller: Essays on Wheat

In 1842, David Fife developed Red Fife Wheat, the dominant wheat grown in Western Canada for 60 years – 1860 to 1910. Red Fife is the male parent of Marquis Wheat which, in 1915, supplanted Red Fife as the dominant Canadian wheat.  nGenium

 

In Africa and the Middle East up to 50 million people risk facing famine within months, deprived by the Russian military assault on Ukraine, of wheat grain from Ukraine. Canada stands prepared to send ships to aid export of Ukrainian grain; a metaphor for the grain that binds the two nations historically. Plant breeders and research circles are aware that Canada's famous wheat owes a debt of gratitude to Ukraine as an industry built upon a kernel of grain from Halychyna in Western Ukraine.

Red Fife -- Canada's oldest wheat allied with Slow Food International's Ark of Taste as a catalogue of endangered heritage foods, and its hybrids including Marquis were descended from wheat grown in Halychanka, Western Ukraine. Plant breeders created new wheat variations with the use of the hereditary base of Halychanka. There is an origins story associated with Red Fife relating to a few grains from a ship full of wheat docked at Glasgow that were tucked into a hatband.

Those grains were sent to a farmer whose name was David Fife who farmed in Otonabee, Peterborough County, in Ontario. A friend from Glasgow where David Fife was originally from, sent farmer Fife grains he took from a ship carrying winter wheat from Danzig, (now Gdansk, Poland). Farmer Fife planted the seeds in the spring of 1842. True to its name, winter wheat requires a cold winter; a single seed sprouted and matured out of which farmer Fife developed Red Fife, still valued today for bread.

Eventually Marquis was derived from Red Fife, a cross with an Indian wheat, Hard Red Calcutta, maturing earlier with a higher yield than Red Fife and with similar bread-making qualities. Marquis was released in 1911, and named the best wheat variety in Canada. Marquis took up 80 to 90 percent of total wheat acreage by 1918, from northern Saskatchewan to southern Nebraska, establishing Canada as a wheat export breadbasket.

 

Ukraine is usually a major producer of cereals such as maize and wheat    Reuters

 

Other Ukrainian grains; Odessa 4 and Myronivka 808 have as well formed a portion of Canadian wheat breeding programs. Barley from Brandon was shared with a Kharkiv research institute. Wheat has been sowed along Ukraine's Black Sea coast since 2700 BC, where the country's black soil lends itself marvelously well to the production of the staple grain. Its broad plains, deep rivers and fresh water from snow melt off mountains enabled wheat export from ports like Odessa.

Whether occupied by Russia, Austria or Poland, Ukrainian wheat obscured its origins, labelled for export under the name of the occupying power. For much of recent history Ukraine was not thought of as a separate region. Known as "Little Russia" in the 18th and 19th centuries, yet in the fifth century when the Ukrainian capital Kyiv was founded, the regional importance of Ukraine kept it a vassal state to whichever neighbour was most powerful at the time.

"Everything relates back to the backbone of Marquis. As a direct descendant of Red Fife [Halychanka], the [Ukrainian] contribution is there."

"For the longest time, the standard for winter hardiness in our winter wheat trials was a variety called Kharkov [named after the city of Kharkiv, home to one of the largest national plant gene banks]."

Dr. George Fedak, research scientist emeritus, Agriculture and AgriFood Canada

Pictured is a wheat field in western Ukraine   AFP via Getty Images

Confusion, Musing From Russia

"This is not the beginning of a war."

"Our desire is to prevent developments that could escalate into a global war."

Maria V. Zakharova, spokeswoman, Kremlin foreign ministry

 

"[I would only] believe in the worst possible scenario [about Russia at this juncture]."

"We are now all trapped in this situation. There is no exit. We Russians will spend many years digging out from the consequences of this day."

Ksenia Sobchak, daughter of St.Petersburg mayor

 

"I have no clue where he got all that [Putin description of Ukraine as a dire threat to Russia in February21 speech] -- he seems to be reading something totally strange."

"He's become an isolated man, more isolated than Stalin was."

Gleb O. Pavlovsky, political scientist, past Putin adviser

 

"I've always tried to understand Putin. He has become less pragmatic, and more emotional."

:"Putin has brought himself to a place in which he sees it as more important, more interesting, more compelling to fight for restoring historical justice than for Russia's strategic priorities."

Ttiana Stanovaya, political analysis firm R.Politik 

President Vladimir V. Putin, attending a wreath-laying ceremony on Defenders of the Fatherland Day this week.  Credit...Pool photo by Alexei Nikolsky

Vladimir V. Putin, President extraordinaire-cum-ruling-Czar of the Russian Federation has become a mysterious figure, one barely recognizable by many prominent Russians who puzzle over a perceived and inexplicable alteration in his personality. A change, or perhaps his subconscious disgorging the real Putin, the one who patiently bided his time while eliminating critics, tightening freedom of speech, incarcerating political opponents and manipulating the Russian constitution to his ongoing administration of the nation.

As an adversarial and ambitious figure aspiring to restore Russia's regional domination, the advent of a new American president long familiar to him and adjudged by that familiarity to be no threat to his future legacy plans, he judged the time right to loosen self-imposed strictures to action. Bluffs and rhetoric taken as dire warning failed to alarm Ukraine's government. A government which also believed it knew the character of the man as they shrugged off the potential for war as an empty threat.

After all, Russians and Ukrainians alike had a full 22 years to assess the qualities of the man who has brought them to the crisis of invasion and conflict. The man of calm determination navigating his country in an increasingly uncertain world suddenly transformed into a belligerent leader putting the world on notice that Russia is a nuclear power. Gone the expectation post Soviet implosion that Russia wuld take its place in a world order preferencing peace over war.

 

Smoke rising from an air defense base in the aftermath of a Russian strike in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday.   Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

February 24 brought shock to Ukraine, but it delivered a very similar sensation throughout Russia that their president had ordered a full-scale assault against a "brotherly nation".  Public figures who had overlooked Mr. Putin's emerging authoritarianism began posting their disbelief and distress on social media, opposing a war they could have no influence on. Thousands of Russians took to the streets from St.Petersburg to Siberia, the chant "No to war!" ringing in their marching wake.

Analysts n Moscow's foreign policy establishment overwhelmingly characterized the military buildup around Ukraine as a mere bluff, only later to grudgingly admit they had misread the mind of a man they had studied in the previous two decades. Through social media, Russians viewed their military sowing destruction and death in a neighbouring country where millions of Russians had relatives and friends.

 

"The world has turned upside down. I cannot even imagine the consequences. This is a catastrophe", said 44-year-old Anastasia as she protested the war in Moscow and bursting into tears, unmindful  of the riot police officers tasked to control the crowd. "It's so strange that Russia could attack anyone", a 60-year-old pensioner said, walking through Zaryadye park in Moscow.

It was during the pandemic that notice first alerted analysts that something seemed different about the Russian president, who had been in a lengthy self-imposed isolation. To them he appeared to be aggrieved as he spoke of a need to correct what he spoke of as historical wrongs. Gleb Pavlovsky, once a close adviser to Mr. Putin, spoke of how stunned he felt by the description the president gave of Ukraine as a dire threat to Russia. 

 

Fallout From Russia's Invasion of Ukraine on Food Accessibility and Prices

"Given what has been happening around the world over the last several months with supply chain issues, saying that food price inflation will stem from this conflict is an understatement."

"If you think Canada is immune to all of this, given our domestic agriculture production, think again."

"Agricultural commodities are traded on world markets. What happens in Ukraine and Russia affects us."

"The world, especially the agri-food world, is deeply interconnected."
Professor Sylvain Charlebois, senior director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab., Dalhousie University, Halifax

Farmers harvested wheat near Tbilisskaya, Russia, last year.   Credit...Vitaly Timkiv/Associated Press

Oil has been recognized as Russia's big stick. Its lockhold on energy shipments to Europe where many countries are highly dependent on the mercurial decision-making of Vladimir Putin, threatens those countries when he holds back supplies, as he indulges in from time to time. Security of supply for their own domestic market grinds the wheels of industry, heats homes and businesses, and is of vital importance for any country's economy.

The swift and direct result of the current situation with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has unleashed that insecurity, and it has imposed upon Europe as well as the global community energy destabilization in the steeply rising price of oil. A year ago there was an oversupply of oil, and it was being sold at $35 a gallon. It has now increased to a staggering $100 a gallon -- and rising. Inflation is on its way to a gallop overall, increasing the price of durable product shipments and food.

Under normal circumstances, Russia exports roughly five million barrels of crude daily and about half is piped to Europe. Making it extremely difficult for those countries hugely dependent on Russian oil to follow through on their intentions to punish President Putin for his irredentist inclinations, culminating in invasion with the intention to occupy Ukraine in the sense of installing a puppet government loyal to Russia.

Penalizing Russia's Putin regime comes with unpalatable risks on many levels, in an increasingly interconnected world of finance and trade. While expressing their displeasure with Mr. Putin's imperious move to break Ukraine of its intention to move ever closer to the West, aspiring to join NATO and the European Union, many countries are concerned over the disruption of Russian energy exports. Particularly at a time when the world is slowly recovering from the economic disaster that SARS-CoV-2 wrought globally.

 

Ukraine's highly fertile black soil makes it an important country for global wheat supplies. (Photo by Alexander RekaTass via Getty Images)

 

Transportation costs for all manner of goods, and most particularly food, will be increasing at an uncomfortable rate. The region under a state of conflict is an exporter of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus fertilizer. In response to the invasion fertilizer prices were increased by over $200 a ton overnight. Farmers hoping to increase their yields in response to higher prices now are viewing steeper operating costs. 

Ukraine, the second largest land mass in Europe, favoured by nature and geography with rich soil, has long been a breadbasket for Europe. Global commodity markets are responding with the onset of the conflict that Russia has brought upon Ukraine. It took no time at all to see wheat and corn futures reaching record-high levels. Canada is a world-class grain producer, the second-largest land mass in the world, after Russia. 

Ukraine, the ninth-largest producer of wheat in the world, has a production level marginally smaller than Canada on a yearly basis. It is also the fifth-largest world producer of corn with agriculture representing some 70 percent of the land in the country, reflecting the fact that about 25 percent of black soil reserves is in Ukraine, enjoying exceptional growing conditions. Ukraine and Russia together account for 25 percent of global wheat exports. The region also produces barley and rye in large quantities.

With the invasion, a ban on all commercial vessels has resulted in the inland sea of Azov -- the main connection to the Black Sea, the location of Ukrainian ports -- becoming inaccessible. Ukrainian grain exports are transported mostly by sea, and marine transport logistics have now been severely compromised in the region.

 

"Global wheat markets have been tighter this year than usual, and that is because there were reduced harvests,"

"At the same time, demand has been really strong, so that has made wheat markets really vulnerable to any – even potential – supply shock."

"With both Russia and Ukraine being major exporters of wheat, this is only going to add pressure to wheat markets."

Erin Collier, economist, trade and markets division, UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization

Kyiv, Fighting Back

Ukrainian servicemen walk at fragments of a downed aircraft seen in in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. It was unclear what aircraft crashed and what brought it down amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine Russia is pressing its invasion of Ukraine to the outskirts of the capital after unleashing airstrikes on cities and military bases and sending in troops and tanks from three sides. (AP Photo/Oleksandr Ratushniak)

"I couldn't imagine this would happen. We are a war with Russia for eight years already, but this? It's insane.:

"I think we will go to Poland. I already have friends there, so I will be fine. If we can make it in, that is." 

Young Ukrainian woman, name withheld, Kyiv, Ukraine

"I knew something bad was coming, ever since Putin recognized [the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics] on Monday."

"But to wake up to Russian missiles was something else."

"I will go and make Molotov cocktails. I want to fight them. I went to the recruitment office today, but they said they wee only taking veterans [for active duty], so I decided on this."

Anya, 25-year-old designer, Kyiv   

 

"Yesterday I woke up from the noise of explosions, I saw flash fires. It was scary."  

"I feel very, very, very angry because it's not a normal situation. It's my country, it's my land, it's my city. And now all of us, all of Ukrainians are under attack. Multiple cities are under attack."  

"All the sanctions are good, but it's not enough. This war is not about only Ukraine and our independence and safety. We are a shield for you - Europe and the world."

Ksenia, resident of Kyiv

Kyiv residents seek shelter in a metro station after being urged by air sirens to find safety  Anadolu Agency

 

Reports emerged on Friday, the second day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that Russian special forces had entered the city, some disguised in Ukrainian uniforms, engaged in a scheme directed by Vladimir Putin to put a quick end to the war by storming the government to take prisoner or kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and others governing the country along with him. That rumour was circulating mid-morning.

By early evening President Zelensky was on the streets of Kyiv, making himself very present, very visible, even as a disinformation rumour began spreading that he had left the country, taken up the offer proffered by the Biden Administration in the U.S., to have American military agents spirit him to safety. He made it be known that he planned to stay right there, along with Ukraine's soldiers, "fighting for our independence". 

Earlier in the day, automatic gunfire rang out in the city; bursts of small arms firing intermittently that could be heard from Ukraine's capital city centre. Air raid sirens sounded regularly throughout the day in response to the threat of Russian bombing raids, sending the city's residents to area air raid bunkers. Ironically, one of those bunkers is a metro station built during the Soviet era to withstand  nuclear attack.

 

On Friday, reports circulated that 50,000 Ukrainians had fled to Poland. Its border was jammed with refugees. Ukraine authorities had taken steps to intercept any vehicles with Ukrainian male civilians over the age of 18 and under 60, to stop them from leaving, to encourage them to enlist in service to their country, to help fight off the attackers. Authorities in Ukraine urged citizens to take up arms in defence of the capital. 

Automatic rifles would be available to anyone wanting to make use of them, and by late Friday 18,000 had been distributed. Other measures were circulating images explaining how Molotov cocktails could be produced; improvised explosives made by filling a bottle with oil and gasoline. Another touch of bitter irony, since the improvised explosive devices were a brainchild of a 1930s-era Russian general.

Older residents of the city were a trifle sanguine about the situation: "These Russians can't do anything to us. I survived the Soviet Union, I'll survive this, too", said one elderly resident. She had no plans to leave the city. "And where would I go? I'll stay right here", she laughed. "A few weeks in a shelter is easy enough."

From both the north and east, Russian armoured columns are closing in on Kyiv. To slow down their progress, Ukrainian forces have been detonating bridges. The city's thermal power station became victim to a Russian hit. As night fell on Friday, men with Kalashnikov assault rifles were on alert, guarding the metro shelters from the potential threat of Russian infiltration.

"Putin and his thugs can try to take Kyiv", said one of the guards holding a rifle. "Let them see how they will manage against three million of us." The piercing sound of intermittent air raid missiles forming the background.

Firefighters inspect damage at a building following a rocket attack on the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (Ukrainian Police Department Press Service via AP)

Hint: We Have a Nuclear Arsenal

"Whoever tries to hinder us ... should know that Russia's response will be immediate. And it will lead  you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history."

"As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today's Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states."

"Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a journalist's question during a joint news conference with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban following their talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. (Yuri Kochetkov/Pool Photo via AP)

"It's a full-scale invasion of a type we haven't seen on European soil since the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939."

It's totally unprovoked, like in 1939, with a very similar narrative: That the Poles don't deserve to have a state or to even be a nation."

"[Putin signalled his intention for days] using obscene language like the 'de-nazification' of Ukraine. What is colonialism if not the pretense that the people cannot govern themselves? That's exactly what Putin is telling us: That Ukrainians are incapable of governing themselves. It's bone-chilling to hear that."

"Short term, sanctions will not stop the war. The Russians are  hoping for a quick war, but we have plenty of examples of course, in world history of quick wars that became less quick. Then the impact of sanctions could be significant because it's very expensive to wage a full-scale war."

Dominique Arel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa

How full-scale? Russian soldiers and tanks approaching Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv mere hours after the Russian military was given the signal Thursday before the crack of dawn to advance and begin their full-out assault on Ukraine. It took only hours for the Russian defence ministry to claim that 74 military facilities, 11 airfields and 18 radar stations for anti-aircraft batteries had been destroyed by heavy and medium bombers. 

Vladimir Putin delivered an address to his nation, just before signalling the start of the invasion, speaking of the 'demilitarization' and 'de-nazification' of Ukraine. A mission statement beyond ludicrous in his bellicose slander of an eastern European nation that has steadfastly democratized and grown closer to the shared values of the West, moving steadily out of the orbit of Russia, and in the process infuriating the Russian president as it attempted time and again to gain acceptance into NATO.

Efforts expended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky foiled by the very reality that Russia bristled with fury with each successive attempt, leading NATO to exercise its judgement to forestall those attempts. Neither NATO in general or any of its members relish the thought of diplomatically, much less militarily, tangling with Putin's Russia. Of the former eastern European countries that had been commandeered into the USSR, and are now part of NATO, none was seen as so fiercely dominated by Russia as Ukraine.

Ground troops crossed into Ukraine in a three-pronged attack, from the north; from the east through Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Sumy; and from Crimea in the south. Tanks were deployed, helicopters and jets flooded across the border into Ukraine, in a carefully planned invasion which saw missiles raining down on cities as the killing machine initiated and fierce fighting began, Ukraine defiant and determined to defend itself and its citizens.

 

Firefighters work on a building in Chuguiv   Getty Images

By the end of the first day of the invasion an estimated 100,000 civilians had fled by train, by bus, by private vehicles, crowding  highways desperate to clear away from the combat zones. Ukraine's neighbours are prepared to give haven to Ukrainian refugees. A strategic military airfield outside Kyiv is in Russian hands. Vladimir Putin's goal is to remove the democratically elected government to re-install a Moscow-appointed replacement.

"What we're seeing right now is tantamount to Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. And you do not respond by adding 60 new people to the sanctions list. This is at the point where the response has to be using every lever at our disposal to turn [Russia] into a self-ghettoized pariah state."

"We should be looking at things like international travel bans. 'You're travelling on a Russian passport? Nope. Sorry. Turn around and go home'. These are the kind of things that would actually start to hurt."

"This is not just a Ukraine issue. Ukraine just happens to be the human sacrifice standing between Russia and the rest of the old Eastern Bloc that Vladimir Putin also laments losing."

"There's no credible reason to think he's going to stop at Ukraine. And those next countries are NATO members, so, at a certain point, if this continues to escalate, we will have an Article 4 responsibility [invoked by NATO when a member country's security is threatened]."

"No one wants it to get to that point. But no one wanted it to get to this point, either."

Yaroslav Baran, managing principal, Earnscliffe Strategies think tank, Ottawa

 

 

Canada and the Ukraine-Russia Conflict

"I note that as the family has currently no status in Canada and is not eligible for health care coverage and has no funds to pay for their treatment, therefore it may be a better option for Vladyslav Zadorozhnyi to return to Ukraine and receive treatment, where he has a status and the treatment is available to him."
Inland Enforcement Officer D. Sliwka, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada

"He was literally wailing, especially when he started to tell me about the persecution he experienced in Ukraine and his fear of being returned. In this case, he and his family are doomed. He has good reasons to expect that they will kill him."
"He needs support. I hope that he will be successful in seeking refugee status, which may give him some relief in terms of the very traumatic situation he was, and is, in."
Felix Yaroshevsky, psychiatrist

"[Mr. Zadorozhnyi was victim to a] swindle [in 2011, and an arson event in 2014 but the] allegation of a current conspiracy of criminals and government officials extorting him using a threat of death or harm to his family is not supported by credible evidence."
Immigration and Refugee Board Canada case worker

Tyler Anderson / National Post   Vladyslav Zadorozhnyi, 15, (left) with his younger brother Andriy Ryabinin (centre), 7, and mother Maryna Zadorozhna (right) in Toronto, Ontario, Wednesday, September 7, 2016.

Appealing to Canada for haven from political persecution and the danger of violence directed against them, the family of Andriy Ryabinin, step-father to Vladyslav Zadorozhnyi, 15, Maryna Zadorozhna, the boy's mother and wife of Mr. Ryabinin, and their 7-year-old son Andriy junior, were turned down, their application failing to convince the Border Services Agency that they were indeed in dire danger if they were to be returned to Ukraine.

The experience of this family in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkov, bordering Russia in East Ukraine, was rife with threats and danger, the family claiming that the 15-year-old was forced to cancel all his normal routines for danger of abduction and had to be driven by armed guard to attend school. The mother was harassed and warned of danger lurking behind them, and her husband felt himself in mortal danger.

Andriy Ryabinin, 45, owned a number of businesses in Kharkov; three clothing stores, two restaurants and the production of a magazine. Claiming extortion by gangsters and threats from corrupt police, they sought refugee status in Canada. Fears of kidnapping and violence caused such stress in the 15-year-old that he attempted suicide when the family was informed their claim had been rejected.

A deportation order had been issued, which led to Vladyslav Zadorozhnyi taking an overdose of prescription drugs. He was hospitalized until his heart normalized after a week, and lives in fear of being sent back to Ukraine. The Canada Border Services Agency refused to defer deportation on medical and compassionate grounds on the basis of "insufficient evidence" the family would suffer as they claimed: "undeserved or disproportionate hardship".

Canada is involved in the Russia-Ukraine dispute over Ukraine's sovereignty, in support of Ukraine against the bullying and threats that Russia represents, as it backs, arms and aids ethnic-Russian Ukrainians rebelling against being governed by Kyiv. Moscow's illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula, depriving Ukraine of its internationally-recognized, lawful territory, elicited sanctions against Russia.

It can be seen how this family's situation has been impacted by the conflict. But that Canadian authorities feel it to be appropriate to detain the family head in jail, as a flight risk, and that the rest of the family had also spent some time in jail cells for fear of their attempting to escape before being deported back to Ukraine, seems unwarranted.  The Public Safety Minister appears to have granted a stay of deportation for the family, in the interim.

Tellingly, Kharkov, despite its eastern Ukraine location bordering Russia, did not go the way of Luhansk and Donetsk which capitulated to the Ukrainian rebels and remain in their hands, bisecting Ukraine. Most Ukrainians living in Kharkov, whether or not they represent ethnic Russian stock or not, preferred to remain loyal to Ukraine, rejecting the rebels' call to join their violent separatist rebellion.

And the family of Vladyslav Zadorozhnyi was obviously caught up in this vortex of rival loyalties, making it feasible to imagine that they felt their Russian roots stirring to the refrain of Russian entitlement to Ukrainian heritage as their very own, since Russia always has felt that Ukraine was their very own.


A female newly graduate of the University of Military Air Forces marches in Kharkiv, Ukraine, during a graduation ceremony. Even as the region stays clear of the separatist war, the upheaval next door is forcing it to pivot westward. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)

The Passionate Faith Tug-of-War for Souls

"This is not only a political war, but a spiritual war. This is a crusade. The West is helping them."
Reverend Sergi Geiko, Orthodox priest, Maryinka, Ukraine

"Deliver us from evil."
"Hate divides, love unites. Use this chance, call his name, bring him into  your life. When he comes like bread, there will be no hunger."
Pastor Yevgeny M. Medvedev, evangelical missionary, Ukraine

"When Jesus was on Earth, he fed people and people followed him for that reason, too."
"When fear comes, people are open to God."
Protestant Missionary Lyubov V. Shpikhernyuk, Ukraine

Yes, when people are hungry they are grateful for donations of food to keep body and soul together. Food is the element required to ensure that the soul does not depart the body. The spiritual and corporeal essence of humankind are meant during a lifetime to share a soul. And evangelical missionaries feel they are following in the traditions of Christ through their distribution of free bread, groceries and firewood in Maryinka, Ukraine.

Ukraine is a country whose east has been riven by civil war. Life is uncertain and privation and desperation visit towns and villages in the Donetsk region where ethnic Russian Ukrainians feel it is their right to separate the land called Ukraine, to hand what they believe to be theirs to dispense of to Greater Russia. Russia certainly agrees and took the opportunity to bring Crimea under its sovereign wing.

And while the separatists and the government forces battle it out in a ceasefire that no one seems to take too seriously, the traditional Orthodox church is also facing opposition, from evangelical groups spurning Catholicism and lauding Protestantism. And so, the elderly and the indigent gather at roadsides to be  handed loaves of bread and Bibles while the missionaries comfort them: "Jesus wants peace!"

Volunteers affiliated with the Christian Aid Center of the Transfiguration Church in Maryinka distributed bread to the town’s residents. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Certainly that much is true, doesn't anyone want peace in a troubled world? So it makes uncommonly good sense that the Son of God sends his divine message of peace. And bread. The miracle of the loaves revisited in war-torn Ukraine. Maryinka is held by the Ukrainian regime where, close to the rebel capital of Donetsk, fighting is sporadic and deadly. While the conflict of physical violence destroys the quality of life, in the half-deserted town evangelicals offer succour.

Two years of war have brought suffering to the people of east Ukraine. But in the grey zone between the government troops and the Russian-backed rebels, life has been a crumbling zone of savagery and suffering-in-progress. Half of the region's prewar population remain in Maryinka and for the 350 children remaining two schools remain open. In the human heart, despite fear and drudgery, hope springs eternal. And hope springs a little more emphatically when promises of a kinder hereafter arrive.

Houses have a bombed-out look, mostly because they have been, and to linger on the street is to be exposed to high-powered sniper rifles of separatists. Maryinka has no natural gas or hot water, since municipal workers cannot perform their vital work of maintaining such infrastructure due to the danger, so pipes remain torn up by shelling. People have reverted to earlier rituals of endurance; hauling firewood, queueing for handouts of bread and groceries; sleeping in root cellars.

 Monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe roam about in armoured vehicles during the daylight hours, monitoring the cease-fire; once they leave at dusk mortar fire resumes. "Maybe their leadership objects to them working at night", grimly quips Mikhailo M. Prokopiv, Ukrainian commander. "Anyway, at 6:30, the shooting starts", bypassing the agreed-upon truce.

Sergei N. Kosyak led a service at the Christian Aid Center of the Transfiguration Church in Maryinka, Ukraine, last month. Credit Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

The Russian wing of the Orthodox Church now has competition; filtered in in the wake of the Soviet  Union's collapse. They have adapted a truly winning formula; humanitarian work aligned with     proselytizing; as an introduction to the brand, a true public relations coup. Aid distribution points combined with churches have been established in ten towns on the Ukrainian side of the border, explains Sergei N. Kosyak, leader of the Christian Aid Center of the Transfiguration Church in Maryinka.

Hundreds of residents are drawn to regular religious services, and a few have been baptized. Some of the funding for the missionary work has been underwritten by Evangelical churches in the United States. The Good News Church located in the city of Slovyansk, north of Maryinka, has established a training school for missionaries in the conflict zone. To the present, 75 people completed the course and have deployed along the front. It can only do good for people to know they are not forgotten.

When the pro-Russian rebels held Slovyansk, they dispatched the evangelicals to exile. Once the city was back in the hands of the government, the missionaries returned to do their work. Sergei Kosyak, for example has a congregation of 70 people. There is a church choir, a bakery, and services on offer, like the delivery of firewood. The turnout for his church is similar in numbers to those who appear for Sunday services at the Orthodox Church of the Kazan Virgin in Maryinka.

And no surprise, the Orthodox priest, the Reverend Sergi Geiko is not too fond of 'luring doubters to God' with material rewards, such as bread. What they are doing, those missionaries, is trespassing in Orthodox land.

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