The Russian embassy in Ottawa lambasted Justin Trudeau in a sharply worded tweet on Thursday, decrying the prime minister’s comments about President Vladimir Putin and warning that such “unacceptable” statements could be “counterproductive” for the bilateral cooperation in the Arctic between the two circumpolar neighbours.
Speaking to reporters in Toronto on Wednesday, Trudeau voiced his sharpest critique yet of the newly re-elected Russian president, bringing the already cool temperature of relations between Ottawa and Moscow a few notches further down.
Unlike German Chancellor Angela Merkel or U.S. President Donald Trump and several other NATO allies, Trudeau has not congratulated Putin on his victory in Sunday’s Russian presidential election, which secured him another six-year term.
“I think President Putin needs to start showing by his actions that he wants to play a positive role in the international community,” Trudeau said.
“Whether it’s by pulling back his engagement in the Donbas or leaving Crimea, whether it’s taking responsibility for the questions, important questions that the U.K. has asked after the terrible poisoning incident a few weeks ago in Salisbury, whether it’s questions around NATO, questions around Syria, questions around the Arctic.”
Russian embassy officials tweeted Thursday that they regretted Trudeau’s “confrontational rhetoric,” which they attributed to the U.K.’s “slanderous Russophobic hysteria.”
“This language of ultimatums is totally unacceptable & counterproductive, especially for bilateral dialogue on important issues, like the Arctic,” said the tweet by the Russian embassy.
We regret PM Trudeau’s confrontational rhetoric at yesterday’s Toronto press-conference prompted by UK slanderous Russophobic hysteria. This language of ultimatums is totally unacceptable & counterproductive, especially for bilateral dialogue on important issues, like the Arctic.
— Russia in Canada (@RussianEmbassyC) March 22, 2018
Changing policy on the Arctic cooperation?
The mention of the Arctic first by Trudeau and then the Russian embassy is particularly interesting, since according to several experts, it is one of the few remaining areas where Russia and Canada continue their bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia, said the Russian embassy tweet was probably written by a junior diplomat in charge of maintaining the Twitter account and does not reflect official Russian policy.
Kirill Kalinin, first secretary of the embassy, said the tweet is an official statement by the Russian embassy and was also retweeted by the main account of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“We’ve always talked about the Arctic with Canada and other Arctic nations in a positive context,” Kalinin said in an email. “Our main thesis is that it’s a territory of dialogue and non-confrontation.”
In fact, Russian officials interpreted Trudeau’s mention of the Arctic as an indication “that Canada might be looking into suspending cooperation with us,” Kalinin said.
“I don’t remember (other) PM’s and other ministers bringing the Arctic issue up in a negative context,” Kalinin said.
When asked to clarify why did Trudeau bring out the Arctic in his remarks and whether that signals a change in Canadian policy of cooperation with Russia in the Arctic, the Prime Minister’s Office responded that Canada’s position is clear.
“We condemn Russia’s illegal annexation and occupation of Crimea and condemn its continued support for the Assad regime in Syria,” Chantal Gagnon, a press secretary with the PMO, said in an email to Radio Canada International.
“Canada calls on Russia to cooperate fully with the British investigation into the March 4 nerve attack in Salisbury, for which the Russian state bears responsibility. We will continue to maintain pressure, including through economic sanctions, until Russia meets its obligations under international law.”
‘Lack of in-depth understanding of policy questions’
Byers said Trudeau was mistaken to bring up the Arctic in his comments.
“There are absolutely no problems between Canada and Russia in the Arctic at the moment,” Byers said. “We have huge problems elsewhere in the world between Canada and Russia but the Arctic is very quiet.”
Trudeau’s reference to the Arctic, where Canada and Russia successfully cooperate in several multilateral bodies, tackling multiple issues such as search and rescue, pollution prevention and response, and scientific cooperation, is probably based on his lack of in-depth understanding of policy questions in the region, Byers said.
“The reference to the Arctic could be based on something as simple as a newspaper headline in that feedback loop that exists between politicians and the media,” Byers said. “I don’t think this was a premeditated reference to the Arctic, I think it was just a slip of the tongue, a reaching out to some sort of context that he may have come across in the media.”
Relations between Canada and Russia are strained with the Canadian Forces commanding a NATO battle group in Latvia, on the border with Russia — part of the alliance’s anti-Moscow deterrent in Eastern Europe following the Kremlin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, and the ongoing turmoil in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has also threatened unspecified retaliation against Canada for its passage of anti-corruption legislation named after Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention in a Moscow jail in 2009 after accusing high-ranking officials of a $230-million tax fraud.
Moscow has also placed Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on a list of at least dozen Canadians banned from travelling to Russia because of their active support of the pro-Western Euromaidan movement, which in 2014 toppled the corrupt but democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanoukovich, who was seen as too friendly to the Kremlin.
With files from CBC News and The Canadian Press
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.