Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave Allowing Criminals to Deceive

"[To deny him the chance to appeal] means he will suffer the 'unduly punitive effect' of removal from Canada based on guilty pleas that would not have been entered had he been properly informed, and deportation to a dangerous country he does not know and that does not want him."

"He and his family were declared Convention refugees by the United Nations in 2013 based on race-based attacks in Somalia, where his parents were born."

"Immigration proceedings leading to deportation were initiated against the applicant in 2024 because of his convictions, and he has since been found inadmissible to remain in Canada on grounds of serious criminality."

Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Kevin Feth 

 

"Mr. Sharif's criminal activities were both serious and dangerous to the public, in addition to the lack of evidence of rehabilitation and the difficulty following rules."

"I have reasonable ground to believe that Mr. Sharif represents a present and future danger to the Canadian public, whose presence in Canada poses an unacceptable risk."

Immigration Minister delegate

 

"My lawyer also told me that I likely would not be deported after pleading guilty because the charges were not serious."

"When I pled guilty to the charges, I did not know that a conviction for sexual assault or a sentence of more than six months would make me inadmissible in Canada and subject to deportation. I also did not know that if I was ordered removed by immigration officials, I would not be able to appeal that decision because I was a permanent resident and not a citizen."

Mahir Yahya Sharif 

The Court of Appeal building in Calgary. Photo by Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald/Postmedia

 

This man of Somalian heritage who had been given refugee status in Canada with his family when he was 19 years of age in 2019, pleaded guilty to trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl, and committing  sexual assault. The Alberta judge whom the man stood before with his legal team allowed himself to be convinced by the man's pleas that he should be given more time to appeal his convictions, through his argument that he had been misled by previous legal advice.

 

Mahir Yahya Sharif, a permanent resident of Canada at the time of his 2022 conviction, having served three years for drug and sex crimes, now faces deportation to Somalia, having been declared a danger to Canada by the Department of Immigration. After his parents fled to Saudi Arabia from Somalia, Sharif was born there, in 1999. His first language is Arabic, speaking no Somali. The claim is that his substance abuse began after his arrival in Canada, exacerbating his history of schizophrenia.

 

He was returned to custody in 2024 when he breached his parole conditions, placed in the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatchewan. Claiming his English to be too poor for him to fully comprehend the language and portent of the immigration documents he was given by an immigration officer when he was told to respond by April 2025, Justice Feth is in complete sympathy with a man whose criminal record is serious and who was purportedly unable to master English in his years of residence in Canada. 

 

Justice Feth took issue with the Immigration Department delegate who "found a 'less than reasonable chance' that the applicant would be at risk if returned to Somalia, and that any humanitarian and compassionate considerations for his continued residency in Canada were outweighed by the danger he posed to the public". He had been transferred into the Custody of the Canada Border Services Agency in Ontario, awaiting deportation scheduled for June of 2025. 

 

He was to be deported to Nairobi, Kenya from whence he would be left to travel on to Somalia, since officials in Somalia informed Canadian officials that they were not prepared to accept him (or anyone else with a mental health condition). The Canadian Federal Court dismissed Sharif's application for a judicial review of the report by the ministerial delegate. Sharif applied for  judicial review of the Immigration Minister's refusal to accede to a request by the UN Human Rights Committee that Canada suspend the man's removal.

 

The appeal of that decision was also dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, leading Sharif to apply to the Albert Court of Appeal for more time to appeal his convictions. Justice Feth took issue with the delegate failing to touch on "Somalia's corresponding refusal to issue him travel documents ... the CBSA's decision not to accompany him to Somalia, contrary to CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) policy, and ... evidence about Al-Shabaab posing a significant and growing security risk in Mogadishu contrary to the author's conclusion that the group has not had a presence in Mogadishu in over a decade and poses minimal risk."

 

"The decision to remove Mr. Sharif given his mental health condition and concomitant needs is harsh", stated Justice Feth, noting that Sharif plans to apply for leave to appeal the outcome of his Ontario Court of Appeal case to the Supreme Court of Canada.  

 

The Rebel 

 

"You Can Choose Light and Choose Life"

"Then they shot at us. The car lost control, flipped over and  stopped. The doors were locked. We realized we couldn't get out, so we got out from the windows. The moment I landed on the ground, I was shot at point blank range."

"What good are your [United Nations] resolutions, your debates, your empty promises, if the sick, elderly, mothers and their children are left to rot in the terror tunnels?"

Israeli Hamas hostage Mia Schem

Chaim Otmazgin, one of the first ZAKA volunteers to arrive at the scene of the Nova massacre, forces himself to share the horrific stories because he ‘promised the bodies’ he would be their mouthpiece. Lisa Hostein; Photos of those who were murdered or abducted dot the landscape of the Nova music festival site. Yael Ilan

 

At the Nova Music Festival in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023, then-21-year-old Mia Schem, along with her friend Elia Toledano fled when "red alert" sirens sounded, with rockets from Gaza flying overhead. Twenty minutes driving away from the festival location failed to bring them to safety. When Mia Schem was shot as she emerged from the toppled car, she realized that pieces of her right hand were "flying into the air". She was was in the presence of burning cars, scattered bodies of the young festival-goers.

 

She made a split-second decision, her survival instinct directing her to "walk toward the terrorists", reasoning that to do so, might be her only chance of survival. "I was dragged by my hair into a truck with seven Hamas monsters", she recalled. Held captive initially in a private home in Gaza, she was later transferred to the Hamas' infamous tunnel system. There, she was placed in a small cage: "They treated me like an animal. They didn't give me any medicine, any treatment, nothing".

 

 A grab from a UGC video posted on Telegram on October 9, 2023, shows an armed Palestinian terrorist walking around the Supernova music festival, with a body behind him, near Kibbutz Re’im in the Negev desert in southern Israel (ANONYMOUS / AFP)

 

Held in this manner for 55 days, she was eventually released on November 30, 2023. The body of her friend, Elia Toledano, was returned to Israel several months later. A year afterward, while around a hundred hostages remained in captivity in Gaza, she addressed the United Nations Security Council, where she informed them that the Nova Festival was "a bloodbath". There, "hundreds of young men and women were shot, dismembered, raped and kidnapped".   

"I choose gratitude. Gratitude for the simple things. For waking up every morning. For breathing."

"For being able to hug my family. To be with my family."

"The most important thing I want people to understand is captivity didn't end the day I came home. My body came back, but part of my heart and soul is still there."
"Every day I make the choice to get  up and keep going, to live. I don't want people to remember me only as a hostage."

"I want them to remember me as a woman who chose life after everything I went through."

Mia Schem 

Screen capture from video of Hamas terrorist Muhammad Abu Aseed celebrates as he abducts IDF soldier Naama Levy on October 7, 2023.

 

During the time of her seemingly endless loss of normalcy, hope never left her tormented mind. She strove to be herself, to believe in herself, and to believe in others, and that some day she would be released, she would be reunited with her family, and she would go on to live her life, forever altered as it would be. In her dank, airless captivity, caged and incapable of normal movement, she turned to daily singing of Shir Lamaalot (A Song of Ascents), for comfort and to remind herself that she would surmount the trauma of what she had borne and witnessed.   

"I hope people understand what my story is. That my story is not only an Israeli story or Jewish story. It is a human story."

"Terrorism doesn't choose a religion and nationality, or skin colour. When we stay silent in the face of hatred and violence, everyone loses."

"I hope people will choose the trust, choose compassion, and the courage to stand with innocent people, and most of all, I want them to remember that there is always hope, even in the  darkest place."

"You can choose light and choose life." 

Mia Schem  

Screams Before Silence, October 7

 

France's Summer of Wildfire Discontent

The wildfire turns the sky red over Lake Moutchic in Lacanau. The popular tourist destination had to be shut down. Photograph: Sapte Fabrice/Abaca/Shutterstock

 

"I hear the anger and  understand the anger today but we're not in a place to analyze what happened yet."

"The resources were available, but the fire was out of control. It was spreading in all directions." 

"[The worst damage occurred at night, when water-bombing aircraft cannot fly to the firefighters' aid] yet with fires like this, aerial support is essential."

"Then there were tactical decisions to be made. Were the right vehicles used at the right time?"

"The conditions this year are totally exceptional. We’ve never seen anything like this. You can always say it’s not enough, we’ve not got adequate resources, enough planes, or whatever, but the scale is completely beyond anything we’ve seen before."

Le Porge Mayor Martial Zaninetti 

 

"It was a short circuit or something of that nature [a spark from a faulty machine being used by workers cleaning a high-tension cable had just ignited a fierce blaze] and immediately everything went up because it’s all so dry. The guys there tried to use a fire extinguisher but it was too intense. My guys basically ran for their lives and by the time the fire brigade turned up it was huge."

"The authorities should have stopped all work in the forest. Someone got their priorities wrong."

Nicolas Di Domenico, local public works contractor 

 

"We feared this for a long time, and were warning about the planes specifically since 2017."

"This summer has shown we have reached the extreme limit of what is possible for France’s firefighters."

Sebastien Delavoux, head, firefighting section, CGT union  

Avenue du Bassin d'Arcachon in Le Porge, France, seen Thursday, is the worst-hit street in the small town of 3,500 where 183 homes have burned in the Gironde wildfire near Bordeaux. (Verity Stevenson/CBC)

 

The French countryside west of Bordeau is burning. Residents of LePorge are furious in their belief their homes were 'sacrificed' so that other homes in the wealthy nearby Cap Ferret peninsula could be saved. When the Gironde prefect arrived to meet with the Le Porge mayor in a village where 12 percent of its 1,500 buildings went up in flames, a man hurled abuse at the prefect. "Now is not the time to play the blame game", said Sophie Brocas, as police and security led her from the town's community hall, while en route to the next blaze, a helicopter whirred overhead.

 

The locals of the village who witnessed 183 of their homes entirely consumed by the 42,000-hectare wildfire -- which had torched a total of 240 houses -- are livid, convinced that the inadequate support send to their area and the preferential aide sent to Cap Ferret with its millionaires' homes represented a political decision that led to a focus of early firefighting efforts at the peninsula. 

 

Coordinating volunteers aiding firefighters in the neighbouring village of Le Temple, Pierre Alexandre argued the region had not been given sufficient firefighting units and vehicles, and was thus 'sacrificed' to favour the well-heeled residents of Cap Ferret. "We should have distributed our resources better", he stated. 

 

Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas responded that the never-before-seen nature of the wildfire that changed direction unpredictably, made it impossible to predict when it would turn about and blow back toward La Porge, with the resulting devastating consequences. La Porge's 3,700 population failed to be convinced by that argument. Angry mistrust settled over the village where rows of ruined homes stood as silent accusing sentries.

 

None of the villagers cast any blame whatever at the firefighters, much less the volunteers who did what they could to augment the dangerous firefighting efforts alongside the firefighters. Residents set up improvised roadblocks, garbed themselves in fluorescent vests, on guard for potential opportunists looking to be able to loot abandoned homes after the owners rushed to escape the raging blaze. 

 

Villagers did what they could to cater food for hungry rescuers. "We found one firefighter sleeping in a ditch as a result of how tired  he was", said caterer Manu Goncalves in between offering portions of roast chicken to the volunteers and professional firefighters. "Here things were ablaze, while in Cap Ferret they weren't. Everyone went to Cap Ferret to protect that peninsula, even as things went up in flames here", said Theo Goncalves, in heated indignation.   

"[Residents ] felt abandoned [when the authorities diverted resources to Cap Ferret]."

"And that goes for everyone -- the volunteers, the firefighters, everyone."

Dorothe Benassy, La Porge municipal councillor  

A drone view shows burnt buildings in an area affected by a wildfire in Le Porge, Gironde, amid drought conditions following a heat wave and water shortages across much of France, on Tuesday. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

 

Indigenous Canadians' Criminality ... All Is Forgiven

"You were set to begin your full parole on April 14. The warrant for your apprehension and suspension was issued and executed on the same day. The Parole Office received information that you had received new criminal charges relating to assault, assault by choking and uttering threats."

"Your ex-intimate partner reported to police that you had assaulted her that morning. At that point,  you reportedly pushed her before choking her. You threatened to kill her and reportedly hit her repeatedly with a closed fist. Police observed physical marks on the victim. You were still at the home of the victim when police arrived."

"You deny any physical violence occurred. You stated that your ex-partner had provided a false statement to police and that she was intending to give police information relating the same." 

Parole Board of Canada 

An armed robber who hit a jewelry shop on Halifax's Quinpool Road in March 2022 is free again on full parole even though the Correctional Service of Canada recommended against releasing him. Photo by Chris Lambie/National Post

 

Sentenced in February 2024 to more than five years in prison for two Halifax jewelry store robberies in March, the 31-year-old was released on full parole this past April. Then he attacked his ex-girlfriend, assaulting and choking her the very day he received full parole with the freedom to turn his life around.That full parole granted despite the Correctional Service of Canada recommending against his release. 

 

Daniel Christian Anthony Johnson and his girlfriend had conceived of a life together, that she and her six children would move in with him once full parole was granted. During his transition from day parole to full parole, his girlfriend "discovered text messages" with other women. They got into an argument, at a time when the children were all at school. The argument led to a heated exchange and Johnson's girlfriend broke up with him. He later in court denied assaulting her, that instead he had attempted to stop her from harming herself.

 

In response to Johnson's criminal recidivism, the Correctional Service of Canada recommended the full parole be revoked. Instead, the parole board cancelled the man's suspension: "It is the board's opinion that you will not, by reoffending before expiration of your sentence according to law, present an undue risk to society if released", the decision read. The board "does not believe" Johnson returned to his cycle of crime, the decision stated. "You were not engaged with individuals who were involved in criminal activity".

 

The original sentence of five years, one month and 14 days was in response to robbery, theft under $5,000, forcible confinement, careless use of a firearm, assault with a weapon, carrying a concealed weapon, unauthorized possession of a restricted weapon in a moving vehicle, and failing to comply with a court order. The latest decision by the Parole Board was based on the fact that Johnson is "a first-time federal offender of Indigenous and African Canadian descent". 

 

"The casual and systemic racism and intergenerational traumas which impact Indigenous and Black people in Canada" was the base assumption utilized in all such cases involving Indigenous and Blacks engaged in serious criminality, with reduced sentences and easier bail conditions, ascribing their behaviour to societal racism and original 'colonialism'.  

 

The Board was assured by Johnson that since being placed back behind bars in the spring he had undertaken a new direction for himself, careful not to socialize with other inmates, engaging in traditional Indigenous customs such as "smudging, making dream catchers, and in touch with an Elder". Enough to melt the stony heart of any arbiter of deserved justice for harms against society. 

 

On the other hand, Johnson was observed to be "diverting" his methadone; rather than swallowing the prescribed medication whose use was to treat opioid-use-disorder, he held on to it, with the intention of sharing, selling or saving it. Prison guards also discovered an unauthorized medication in his cell. He "also admitted to participating in a drone drop", informing the board that he had "participated under threat of violence and did not consume any drugs related to the drone drop". 

 

Task force targeting drones delivering contraband into prisons.

 

"The Board acknowledges that colonization, residential schooling, forced assimilation practices and racism and marginalization have impacted your upbringing and how you interact with the criminal justice system."

"The Board considers that it is clear that this history provides context for your criminality."

"Specifically, you have experienced family fragmentation, substance abuse, and have been the victim of violence."

"The Board believes that your substance abuse, poor coping mechanisms and poor emotions regulation are linked to the trauma you and your family have experienced." 

Parole Board of Canada 

Spanish Ceuta Rushed by Hordes of Moroccan Migrants

"This situation is unprecedented. It breaks the trend that we have been recording throughout Spain of a systematic reduction year after year, month by month, in the arrivals of irregular migrants."

"The government of Spain is fully committed to providing an immediate response to the situation in Ceuta."

"This is the moment to build solutions, with responsibility and cooperation."

"[Authorities will place buoys in the breakwaters to act as a] containment barrier. [The arrivals are a] violation [of Spanish territory]." 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez 

 

"The images coming from Ceuta are unacceptable."

"[We must witness the] swift [return of those who arrived in Ceuta]."

"We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules."

Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President 

At least 57 people have died after some 60,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta, a tiny Spanish-held spit jutting into the Mediterranean from Morocco, in the past 24 hours, Ceuta's leader Juan Jesús Vivas said Friday. (Antonio Sempere/The Associated Press)

 

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has distinguished his government as a European leader of the left, sympathetic to illegal migrants and prepared to give citizenship to some hundreds of thousands, who had formerly entered Spain, as a signal of his kind regard for their positive-discriminatory decision to choose Spain as their life-destination over remaining in their countries of origin where clearly opportunities for life-advancement are not as advantageous as they surmise the future would be for them in a European country. 

 

Spain's broad legalization plan with its migrant-conciliatory tone toward migrants arriving from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America set the tone for the regard Spain has cultivated among future migrant hordes. He has roundly criticized Israel for its invasion of Gaza on a mission to destroy the terrorist group Hamas's capacity to launch another and another and another October 7 mass atrocity on Israeli civilians. He is a critic of the 'war' on Iran, challenging the Trump administration on its focus to free Iranians from the grip of their persecutorial Islamist theocratic regime.

 

Despite this background, the sudden mass arrival of migrants from Morocco and Algeria surprised not only Spain but its neighbours throughout the European Union, shocking governments worldwide at the unexpected boldness of an estimated 60,000 migrant arrivals over a 24-hour period, arriving by sea, swimming or clambering fences into the Spanish territory outpost of Ceuta, with its 83,000 population, located 11 miles from the Spanish mainland.

 

Migrants wait to cross to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, from the Moroccan side of the border in Fnideq. (Reuters)

 

Even as images of the wild crush of people -- mostly young males, bringing nothing with them but their wild aspirations flooded social media Spain ordered a military deployment for order to be restored; a day later reinforcing security and border fences. Morocco, the source of the frantic migrant onrush, deployed water cannons in an effort to push back the migrants. The new migrants were swiftly repatriated a day later, but not before causing havoc in Ceutra, where shops were being looted and private homes entered by the new arrivals.

 

A shudder of apprehension went through Europe with the memory of the 2015 migrant crisis in the region. The finger of reproach and responsibility most favoured by the Sanchez government was human traffickers responding to a recent Supreme Court decision that migrants arriving by sea to Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned to their source without due process. Spanish media interviewing migrants were given other reasons for the rush; phone or social media network messages that the border was "open" and there would be no hindrance to their passage.

 

The mass migration had unfolded "outside of our will", was the message from Morocco's ambassador to Spain, and that Morocco "wants these citizens to return to our country".  Across Europe outrage ruled, and mainstream political figures responded with stern authority, France declaring their border controls with Spain would be strengthened. Europe had already reached the conclusion that Spain was an irregular migrant liberal outlier.

 

"The images coming from Ceuta are striking and demonstrate, once again, that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to the security of Europe's borders", wrote Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, calling for the suspension of Spain from the Schengen agreement allowing free movement between 29 European countries. Italy had the support of Finland in calling for Spain's exclusion from the agreement.

 

Spain deployed troops to reinforce police after thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa. The scene was reminiscent of 2021, when about 10,000 migrants entered the territory.  CBC News (still from video)

 

Russia, Diving Nuclearshod Over Its Arctic Neighbours

"Russia is determined to control access, setting the terms for exploiting regional shipping and resources. It wants to extend command over stretches of Arctic water, with little justification under international law."

"If Canada wants stronger maritime security -- as the Canadian Coast Guard's transfer to the Department of National Defence last September suggests -- it must grasp Russia's Arctic plans and the long-term persistent threat they pose." 

Alexander Dalziel, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Sergey Sukhankin Jamestown Foundation 

 

Canada has for too long neglected its share of the Arctic against the predatory plans of Moscow which has made no secret of its determination to extend its recognized territorial claims by rebuilding its old semi-abandoned bases, investing in nuclear-powered ice-breakers, strengthening its air capabilities in its long-range plans of controlling shipping lanes, and harvesting minerals and oil in their oceanic fastness. 

 

The provocative act of planting its titanium Russian flag on the Arctic seabed in 2007 was a signal of its entitled 'ownership' of an extended, contested area alerting placeholders, Canada, United States, Denmark and Norway that their own long-acknowledged territory at sea can no longer be taken for granted.

 

Securing and safeguarding the Arctic was a major topic for discussion, along with strengthening maritime security in the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans during the recent NATO summit in Turkey. Russian President Vladimir Putin's territorial ambitions focused the discussion on setting global terms for regional exploitation of the undersea resources, and the associated need to agree on how best to ensure maritime security in the face of a national leader unconcerned with international law. 

 

Ivan Papanin was laid down in 2017 and is expected to join Russia’s Northern Fleet by the end of 2024. Two additional vessels of the type are under construction for the naval units of the country’s border patrol. gCaptain

 

Russia makes no secret of its intention to resort to military means with its formidable nuclear submarines in play and its paramilitary Russian Coast Guard prepared to control access to the Northern Sea Route, north of Russia, bordering on U.S. territory in the east, Norway in the west. Russia's focus is the promotion of year-round shipping through the Arctic. Its investment in ice-class liquefied natural gas carriers illustrate its regional power assertion.

 

Norwegian and European authorities sanctioned Russian fishing industries on suspicion of espionage and infrastructure sabotage. The Russian proposed "Transarctic Transport Corridor" to connect southern industrial centres and Siberian resource projects to foreign markets through the Northern Sea Route is a marked concern, while offshore drilling and underwater mining are seen as insurance against dwindling land resources. 

 

While Russia polishes its credentials as the only serious player in the Arctic, entitling it to expand its boundaries and without consultation with the other Arctic nations set standards running loops around its Arctic neighbours, its state media invested in propaganda elevating Russian plans, express contempt for Canadian, American or Danish development plans in the North American Arctic, marking them with a hostile purpose, a potential "bridgehead" with which to threaten Russia; its own three-decade military presence aside. 

 

Three Russian nuclear icebreakers in the Arctic. (Source: Atomflot)

 

"The Arctic is central to Russia's deepening partnership with China and its broader authoritarian agenda. Moscow is courting Chinese investment while giving Beijing access denied by Arctic democracies."

"China  is using Arctic waters to diversify its export routes while gaining experience operating in the region."

"The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says that both countries are increasing their espionage activities."

Alexander Dalziel/Sergey Sukhankin 

Ukraine, A Nation At War Becoming a Military Power

"Ukraine is now capable of striking Crimea, threatening Russian supply lines."

"Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine is still suffering. Russian missiles have so long hit civilian targets that it is no longer even remarked that such were once recognized as war crimes."

"More sobering, while Ukraine fights on, it is not evident how the war might end. It is entirely possible that Ukraine may not lose, but still not win definitively."

Fr. Raymond J. De Souza, National Post 

Ukrainian infantry soldier in Donetsk trench. Reuters

 

When Russia first fully invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Poland received almost two million fleeing Ukrainians. No refugee camps resulted. The Poles welcomed the refugees into their homes. A million such Ukrainian refugees are still left in Poland, sheltering themselves from constant Russian bombardment of missiles and drones over Ukraine's cities in the Kremlin's direct targeting of civilian populations, a noted war crime. 

 

More recently, a revival of Polish right-wing populism has arisen and with it hostility to Ukraine, shifting to viewing Russia's Vladimir Putin with a measure of tolerance. Memories are not dead in Poland to the reality of Ukrainian World War II alliances with Hitler's death squads, helpfully assisting in the murder of Poles and Jews through the auspices of the Waffen SS, where an SS battalion of Ukrainian volunteers was formed, during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. 

 

Nachtigall Battalion in 1941

Ukrainian auxiliaries were involved in the murder of Ukraine's Jews. Some of their leaders are still heralded as war heroes in Ukraine to the present day. Poles were their victims as well, while the Soviet military eventually became their liberators from the Nazi extermination project. Russia's President Putin has used that history to explain his full-scale invasion of Ukraine; 'liberating' it from the neo-Nazis still presumably governing the country from Kyiv.

 

Even the Trump administration's soft spot for Putin expressed by President Donald J. Trump has had its influence, which  tended to view Ukraine with suspicion and Russia with a degree of admiration. There has been a levelling off of President Trump's expressed fondness for President Putin now that Ukraine's resolute self-defence has finally put Russia's plans on the back foot. No one appears to have realized that the Russian territorial grab of 2014 when it annexed Crimea and incited rebellion in the Donbas would lead to a full-scale invasion.

 

February 28, 2026 joint strikes by U.S./Israel on Tehran, Iran.  Reuters

 

Ukraine now is recognized as an Eastern Europe military power, producing its own armaments even while it continues to rely on military aid from Europe and North America. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been welcomed as an adviser for the Gulf countries under attack by Iran in response to the U.S.-Israel 2026 aerial attacks. Ukraine's formidable counteroffensive while producing millions of advanced drones, has enabled it to hit Russian targets from Moscow right up to Siberia. 

 

Ukraine's fervent wish to become a member of NATO will be realized, post-war. There have been errors in judgement made by President Zelenskyy and he has been brought up short by public anger over them, as when his appointed defence minister and the chief of the Ukrainian military were at loggerheads, the former opting for a new approach in meeting the enemy, the latter wedded to the tried-and-true conventional responses with conventional weaponry. 

 

When given an ultimatum to make a choice, the president fired his popular defence minister only to face days of demonstrations by furious Ukrainians, forcing him to reverse his decision. And the war goes on.

 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS