Tag Archives: Ukraine

Roundup: “Canada First” is mostly just Poilievre’s greatest “hits”

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Pierre Poilievre had his “Canada First” rally on Flag Day, Saturday, and in front of a crowd of about 800 in the smallest room in the Rogers Convention Centre in Ottawa, laid out his new vision of Canada, being the attempted pivot from just an “axe the tax” slogan, to the aforementioned “Canada First.” (Full speech transcript here). And aside from some newer talking points about retaliatory tariffs if Trump goes ahead, he nevertheless was incoherent even in his performative toughness. In saying that America has two options—a trade war, or an even deeper trade relationship with Canada, in the very same breath, he castigated the Liberals for “forcing” dependency on the American market for entirely bullshit reasons, with some revisionist history about the ghosts of energy project proposals past. Like, what? You say you want an even deeper relationship, but the Liberals were bad because they couldn’t force businesses and industry to divest from that market? What?

From there, it went into his greatest hits of stupid talking points, like his refrain about how we have the most land but aren’t building houses on it—as though we’re building residential subdivisions on the Canadian Shield or the Arctic tundra. He claimed he was right about everything, from the carbon levy to the capital gains changes (he wasn’t), and then played the victim about how nobody believed him but he was proven right. (He wasn’t). He went on some bullshit about pipeline projects that was, again, revisionist history, and then went on a tangent about the Canadian Pacific Railway and how Liberals wouldn’t get it done today. “Would some squeaky, keep-it-in-the-ground liberal cabinet minister like Guilbeault have chained himself to a tree to stop it?” My dude, do you know how many people died to make it happen? The dispossession of land, the immigrants coming over as indentured labour, those indentured immigrants blowing themselves up to create passageways through mountains? Seriously? Meanwhile, his promise to rapidly approve projects won’t actually get them built, and neither will bribing local First Nations with the promise of a greater share of royalties, and his vision of a west-east pipeline won’t change the economics.

https://twiiter.com/andrew_leach/status/1890058822175347027

There as more reheated nonsense about how he’s going to miraculously abolish interprovincial trade barriers with a magic wand. He promised to militarize the border, which is a Very Bad Thing. There was more rehashed tough-on-crime nonsense with repeated promises to repeal laws that have nothing to do with what he claims they do. He repeated his promise from last-week to unilaterally build a base in Iqaluit, with no input from the Inuit. And then it was the usual culture war bullshit, with the absolutely risible claims about how the Liberals “divide people by race, religion, gender, vaccine status.” No, they acknowledge that differences exist, that it’s not all middle-aged straight white men as the “neutral” and “norm.”

While centre-right pundits swooned at the notion that Poilievre was laying out a vision, he wasn’t really saying anything more than he’s been saying for the last two years, and all of it was vacuous noise. He was still playing it incredibly safe to avoid pissing off the MAGA supporters he’s trying to court so that they don’t go back to voting for Maxime Bernier, no matter how performatively tough he was about Trump’s threats, because he still had to mediate them with claiming that Trump was still right about the border and fentanyl (which he’s not). Apparently, nobody has actually paid attention to anything he’s said over those two years, but just instead paid attention to his churlish tone. (Oh, and I am also looking very askance at CBC for their credulously repeating everything he said without actually challenging any of it. That’s not journalism, guys, even if you’re stuck on the weekend shift).

Lots of spending going on here but if they honestly care about a balanced budget (more than rhetoric) spending cuts have to come. Like big cuts. Like more than $100b by my count

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-02-16T18:25:45.143Z

https://bsky.app/profile/lindsaytedds.bsky.social/post/3licue34m6c2h

Pretty much the whole of #cdnpoli these days.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T03:30:20.152Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 33 out of 70 Russian drones overnight Friday, and an overnight drone attack on Saturday damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv, leaving 100,000 people without power in subzero temperatures. Russian troops have also intensified their attacks toward Pokrovsk. Elsewhere, the ammunition acquisition programme on Ukraine’s behalf has delivered 1.6 million shells to date and is carrying on, while Emmanuel Macron is hosting an emergency European summit on Ukraine in the wake of JD Vance’s attack on liberal democracy.

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Roundup: Paying $85,000 for the privilege of being humiliated

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As if that “big” meeting the premiers had with those mid-level White House officials who ended up trolling and humiliating them couldn’t get any worse, well, it did. It turns out, they paid a lobbyist connected with Don Jr. $85,000 to arrange said meeting, where they didn’t get properly briefed, and froze out the Canadian ambassador (who had a meeting in the White House with actual senior officials earlier that day) in the process.

Because I can’t do it justice, here’s more (full thread starts here):

/ “According to this high-level source, the premiers ‘underestimate how problematic this administration is and think that it is us, the Liberal fed govt, that’s incapable … because we are progressives.’ The source says the premiers now realize that the Trump admin is ‘a threat beyond partisanship.’”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:22:16.642Z

/ “Another source regrets the premiers did not invite any Canadian representatives to the table, such as the Canadian ambassador to the US, for example. Kirsten Hillman is considered the person who can open any door in Washington, and she should be aware of all discussions, the source believes.”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:23:02.640Z

/ “Some statements made by the Quebec premier have also raised eyebrows in Ottawa. A federal source believes François Legault revealed too much of his strategy.” Story cites some examples of him putting issues on, or taking them off, the negotiating table.

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:25:56.279Z

/ Ottawa, by the way, feels the same about certain other provinces publicly declaring what Canada should or shouldn’t use as negotiating leverage.

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:26:35.912Z

/ “‘It becomes dangerous to think out loud,’ said a federal source, who believes that such statements could weaken Canada’s negotiating position by revealing too much too soon. ‘We must not negotiate against ourselves,’ the source added.”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:27:17.535Z

I’m not sure that I can stress this enough—premiers have absolutely no business trying to conduct foreign negotiations. The federal government not only has been handling the situation, but they have told the premiers not to constantly react to everything coming from the Trump administration because it’s chaotic and incoherent, and then they went and tried to get their own meetings? Them meeting with senators and governors sure, I can understand, because they are more on their level as counterparts, but it’s also pretty useless in the current environment because Trump has absolutely everyone cowed.

I’m also going to point a finger at the media for emboldening these premiers because they keep saying things like “there’s a vacuum of leadership” at the federal level and so on, which is not the case. Trudeau is still on the job, even if he’s on his way out. Ministers are still doing their jobs. We have an ambassador in Washington doing her job. They have explicitly told the media that they are not going to react to everything for very good reason. There is no actual need for the premiers to step in and start freelancing. Doug Ford’s “Captain Canada” shtick was him positioning himself before an election, and thanks to uncritical media coverage, waaaaaaaay too many people fell for it. But the media needs people to light their hair on fire at every utterance, and the premiers have been only too happy to step in and fill that role, or to give the bootlicker position (because both sides!), and the federal government just winds up sidelining itself in the process. We’re handing Trump so many little wins because nobody can keep their powder dry.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack damaged port infrastructure in Odesa for a second day in a row. Another Russian drone pierced the outer shell of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and while radiation levels are normal, there is a danger if power goes offline at the site for too long. Russians also claim to have taken control of two more settlements in Donetsk region.

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Roundup: Leadership hopefuls straying into provincial territory

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It’s practically an iron law of Canadian politics that the longer a federal leadership contest runs, the more likely they are to start dipping into areas of provincial jurisdiction. With the NDP, well, that’s a given because they refuse to understand the very notion that federalism exists and you can’t just wave away jurisdictional boundaries with “political willpower” (aka Green Lantern Theory), but the Liberals are all pretty much at it right now with their various campaigns.

Chrystia Freeland proposed a plan to give incentives for Canadian-trained doctors and nurses to come home, with a big bonus and a promise to get credential recognition “within 30 days.” I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to work because the federal government doesn’t pay doctors and nurses (except in cases where they are working with Indigenous Services for First Nations and Inuit facilities), and credentials recognition is run by provincial professional colleges, where the federal government has no particular sway, so I’m not sure how she plans to make that happen. As well, most provinces have not done the necessary things to attract and retain doctors and nurses, such as properly increasing their compensation, or reforming how they bill the system, so it’s hard to see how the incentives are in place for them to be tempted by her one-time bonus.

Mark Carney wants to incentivise prefabricated and modular homes…but won’t give any details on how, that would happen. And yes, housing is primarily a provincial responsibility, so again, I’m not sure just what mechanism he wants to use for said promotion.

Karina Gould proposed both reforms to EI, which her government has been sitting on for years (and yes, I know people who were working on said project years ago), and also promised to a “path” toward basic income, which is hugely problematic at the federal level because most social services are delivered by the provinces, and it’s incredibly complex to try and figure out the various supports at different levels. The BC government had an expert panel report on how to make it happen, and their ultimate recommendation was not to proceed with a basic income, but to enhance existing supports because often they are better targeted for people with complex needs. Gould seems to have ignored this research, and even more disappointing was that the CP story about Gould’s proposal talked about the NDP private members’ bill and the Senate public bill which called for a “framework” for basic income, but those bills couldn’t actually make it happen. They were empty because those kinds of bills can’t spend money, and would simply have been moral suasion. Unfortunately, progressives have consistently ignored the research on basic incomes, because it’s a solution in search of problems that they are desperate to try, and if Gould wants “evidence-based” policy, this is not it.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians launched 140 drones against Ukraine overnight Wednesday, and strikes damaged port facilities in Izmail, while two of the drones landed in neighbouring Moldova. Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s Andreapol oil pumping station, starting a fire. President Zelenskyy appeared to have visited near the front lines at Pokrovsk, praising the good work of the soldiers there. Zelenskyy also said that he would not accept any bilateral “peace deal” that the US reaches with Russia in which Ukraine is not a participant.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1890070620504985845

A reminder: Vladimir Putin could end the war in Ukraine right now, just by ordering his soldiers to go home. No need for treaties or negotiations.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T12:17:35.210Z

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Roundup: Meeting some “senior officials”

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It was a big day of meetings in Washington—Dominic LeBlanc was there to meet with senior officials to try and talk them out of a trade war, while all of the premiers went down as a pack for the first time, and had their own meetings as well. And then word came down that they got a meeting with the White House, and cancelled the rest of their engagements for the day to hurry over. So just who did they meet with? The deputy chief of staff, and the head of personnel. And after their respectful meeting, said deputy chief of staff sent out a trolling tweet.

This while Danielle Smith insists that “diplomacy is working!” Sure it is. It’s working so well that you got a meeting with the head of White House personnel, and afterwords, they laughed at you on social media and continued making annexation threats and saying to take Trump seriously about it. How exactly does that show that it’s “working”? Yes, you got a thirty-day reprieve for him to keep moving goal posts in order to keep extracting more concessions, while everyone just shrugs and says “He’s a deal-maker.” Have some self-respect.

Ukraine Dispatch

A pre-dawn ballistic missile salvo killed one person in Kyiv. A report suggests that Russia has been able to withstandheavy battlefield losses because of a larger population and newer equipment, but their advantages in terms population and Cole War stockpiles are going to continue degrading over time.

Trump turned his attention to the invasion of Ukraine, and after his defence secretary said that Ukraine can’t expect their proper borders to be restored or NATO membership, Trump himself started talking about Ukraine handing over critical minerals for this bad deal of surrendered land (and people) along with no security guarantees. None of this is good.

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Roundup: Policies or platitudes?

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Chrystia Freeland is continuing to release policy ideas, and yesterday there was another list of them—a Middle Class™ tax cut (aimed at the upper end of that middle class, I would say), which seems to be about keeping pace with Mark Carney’s pledge; she is talking about cutting GST on new homes for first-time homebuyers, which echoes Pierre Poilievre’s pledge (and this particular policy has had the stamp of approval by people like Mike Moffatt); not only capping certain grocery prices, but going after the consolidation and monopolisation in the food chains before they reach the grocery oligopoly (the NDP howled that she was trying to steal their grocery cap idea, which they in turn took from France); capping credit card interest rates at 15 percent; and thousands of more early learning and child care spaces (which, I remind you, requires the cooperation of the provinces). It’s a lot, and some of them I find a bit dubious (such as the grocery price cap), but she did get the nod from experts in the field like Vass Bednar, so maybe I need to keep a more open mind about it. Nevertheless, she is coming out with a lot of proposals, and speaking to a lot of Canadian media, including in Quebec, unlike certain other leadership candidates.

Meanwhile, I continue to be completely underwhelmed by Carney, while everyone fawns over him. I am somewhat incredulous at this interview that he did with a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press, who titled it “Mark Carney pitching answers, not slogans,” but he didn’t actually provide answers! Carney has pitched his Middle Class™ tax cut (which will inevitably disproportionately benefit the very wealthy), and then gave the platitudinous “It’s time to build … homes, building clean energy infrastructure, using all of our energy resources to maximum effect, helping to build the industries of the future now.” That actually says nothing. We know we need to build more homes and infrastructure, the question is how you’re going to do it in a way that is faster and more effectively than we’ve done to date, and that’s the real kicker that he doesn’t answer.

I also find his admission that he didn’t want to jump into politics until the top job was open to be completely off-putting. There are skills in politics that you don’t learn just jumping in at the very top, and it smacks of a particular kind of arrogance that Carney doesn’t see that. Nevertheless, the polls are suddenly swinging in his favour, so he’s clearly convinced a whole lot of people based on his resumé (a resumé that should preclude him from ever going into politics at that), and that single interview he did with John Stewart, but it feels like a whole lot of unearned credit at this point in the race.

Ukraine Dispatch

An early morning Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed at least one person and injured at least three others, while sparking several fires. Overnight Russian attacks on the Poltava region damaged natural gas production facilities in the region.

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Roundup: Unilateral Arctic plans and foreign aid churlishness

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Pierre Poilievre called a press conference from Iqaluit, yesterday, where he announced his Arctic policy ideas, which include finally building an air force base in the region, doubling the number of Canadian Rangers, and building two more heavy icebreakers, but for the Royal Canadian Navy and not the Coast Guard. Oh, and that he was going to pay for it all by gutting foreign aid. Set aside the fact that the plans for an Arctic base have long been in the works with slow progress, but does the Navy even want icebreaker capability? They didn’t want the slushbreakers—sorry, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships that the Harper government decided they needed, and here is another Conservative who wants to impose capabilities that they have not asked for, because reasons. Nevertheless, this whole thing set off the premier of Nunavut, who noted there was zero consultation on these policies, and pointed to actual sovereignty-affirming things that governments should be doing for the north that aren’t this kind of performative flexing.

As for Poilievre’s disdain for foreign aid, it’s one-part monkey-see-monkey-do with MAGA and Elon Musk dismantling USAID, but it’s juvenile, provincial, and ignores that foreign aid is soft power that also does thinks like not let Russia and China swoop in and start winning hearts and minds in those countries, which is what Trump opened the door to, and which Poilievre seems keen to follow, justified by a number of lies about the recipients of that aid based on the fact that UNRWA may have had a handful of compromised employees. He doesn’t care about the realities of this aid spending and the projection of soft power, because those recipients can’t vote for him, and he’s playing into tired populist tropes about “taking care of people at home,” even though they actually don’t care about vulnerable people at home, and just want a tax cut instead of actually helping anyone. And again, Poilievre doesn’t care.

If anything, Canada should actually be living up to its previous pledges about increased funding for foreign assistance, particularly because the dismantling of USAID is going to affect programmes that Canada was partnering with them on, and they provided much of the “thought leadership” in the space. Children are going to die of malnutrition, and preventable illness, HIV infections are going to skyrocket, and again, Poilievre doesn’t care because those people can’t vote for him. What a bleak, cursèd timeline we live in right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged an industrial facility—possibly an oil refinery—in Russia’s Saratov region. The US’ “freeze” of aid money means that organisations helping investigate Russian war crimes can’t pay staff or continue their work—Trump and Musk just doing Putin’s bidding.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1888916130254725208

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Roundup: A new tariff threat?

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Surprising nobody except the most credulous, Donald Trump’s “thirty-day reprieve” has ended early with the announcement that he’s launching steel and aluminium tariffs today—allegedly—and that includes on Canada. Maybe. We’ll see. But he insists he’s serious about annexing Canada (while his national security advisor, being too cute by half, insists there are no plans to “invade” Canada, which is not what Trump has threatened). When asked about the comments in Paris, Justin Trudeau didn’t say anything, but senior officials (correctly) said they are waiting to see something in writing first, because they know that Trump says a lot of things.

Of course, since the start of the tariff threats, we have a bunch of people talking about west-east pipelines again, which has yet again led to a bunch of media outlets credulously retyping complete mythology about what happened with the pipeline in the first place, and taking Poilievre’s word for what happened, even though he’s once again bullshitting.

And of course, we’re also repeating the complete nonsense about the Liberals trying to “kill” the energy sector over the past nine years. But given that oil and gas production are at record levels, and royalties are churning out, it really doesn’t look like they succeeded (never mind that they bought a pipeline to ensure its competition, championed Keystone XL, and got a major LNG project on the west coast over the finish line). Yeah, they were really trying to kill the industry by doing all that. Can we have some adults in the conversation, please?

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 67 out of 139 Russian drones overnight Friday, and 70 out of 151 drones overnight Saturday. Further drone attacks overnight Sunday started a fire in Kyiv and damaged houses in Sumy.

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Roundup: The threat of annexation is serious

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Well, things got real again today, as Justin Trudeau told the audience at his Canada-US Economic Summit that Trump isn’t joking around with his talk of annexation, and that part of the reason why is access to our critical minerals. Trudeau apparently also talked about the need to mend fences with Mexico as well, which was apparently an oblique shot at Doug Ford, who has been trying to throw them under the bus rather than working with them to counter Trump. (Ford, meanwhile, disparaged the whole summit while on the campaign trail, because apparently, it’s stealing his thunder). There was also talk at the summit about pipelines, nuclear energy (and conservative shills who claim Trudeau is anti-nuclear are straight-up lying), and removing some of the federal-situated trade barriers around financial services regulations and procurement.

As the day went on, more details came out about those two calls that Trudeau had with Trump on Monday about the tariffs and the “reprieve” that was granted. Comments included that Trump was musing about breaking a 1908 boundary treaty, was dismissive of our contributions to NORAD, and listed off a litany of complaints. (Because “it’s all about fentanyl,” right?) It was also on this call that Trudeau apparently deduced that Trump hadn’t been briefed on the $1.3 billion border plan, but maybe that’s what you get when Trump refuses your calls for weeks while he plays gangster. (And he was also refusing the Mexican president’s calls as well, so this was not a Trudeau-specific snub).

So this is where things are at—the stakes are higher than we may want to admit (and certainly the head of the Canadian American Business Council doesn’t want to admit it and still believes this is just an offensive joke), but maybe this existential threat will help shake off the normalcy bias that has perpetuated a certain status quo. Nevertheless, the political landscape is shifting drastically right now, and it’s going to make for a very different election campaign than what everyone was counting on.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb attack on Sumy region in the northeast killed three. Russians claim to have taken the settlement of Toretsk, but the Ukrainian brigade in the outskirts says they haven’t moved. International nuclear monitors are concerned that the number of attacks on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have increased.

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Roundup: Baylis brings back boneheaded ideas

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Yesterday, no-hope Liberal leadership candidate Frank Baylis offered his ideas about how to make politics better, and…*sighs, pinches bridge of nose* It’s so bad, you guys. Back when he was an MP, Baylis had proposed a motion to change the Standing Orders to do a bunch of dumb things that he felt would improve things for MPs, but then didn’t show up for the debate on his own motion, so it died on the Order Paper, fortunately. But I see that he’s back at it again.

I cannot stress enough how stupid of an idea term limits are in a system like ours, because you actually need to have institutional memory in politics, and you can’t build that up in ten-year increments. You just can’t. That’s one of the reasons why the Senate tends to be more valuable in that capacity (which has been curtailed thanks to Trudeau kicking Liberal senators from his own caucus and only appointing independents), but you need experienced MPs in your caucus. Term limits make that impossible, especially for ten years. Canada already has a problem with a higher-than-normal rate of turnover for MPs as compared to other similar democracies, and making the churn worse doesn’t help. Baylis kept justifying this by saying “I’m a professional engineer” when questioned about this on Power & Politics, which doesn’t actually give him any special insight.

His idea of letting the Speaker choose who gets to speak and not party leaders is partially sound, but only in particular circumstances. I get that he wants to eliminate speaking lists, which I do agree with, particularly for Question Period, but it’s not as much of a problem as the rules around speaking times, and how we structure debates. Of course, he then screws up that decent idea with the boneheaded notion of petitions to trigger debates. Parliament is not supposed to be about empty take-note debates. Debates should have a purpose—speaking to motions or legislation that actually do something, rather than speaking for speaking’s sake. That’s all that this idea does.

Finally, Baylis wants a second chamber like they have in Westminster and Canberra, but again, this is ill-thought-out. We already don’t have enough MPs to fully staff all committees (particularly without having parliamentary secretaries as voting members), and to keep debate going in the Chamber, and now you want to add a second chamber? He says this would “speed up decision-making and end legislative gridlock,” but it absolutely wouldn’t because that’s not what those chambers do in the UK or Australia. They are largely used for non-votable debates, and giving speeches or statements. That kind of thing may be of more use in the UK where there are 650 MPs who can’t make members’ statements with much frequency, but it doesn’t affect the pace of legislation at all. It’s so stupid that he didn’t even bother to read up on his own gods damned proposals, but hey, he’s a “businessman” and an “engineer,” so why bother to actually learn how politics works? Honestly.

Meanwhile, speaking of his other no-hope candidate…

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians claim to have repelled an offensive in the Kursk region. Ukraine received some more F-16 fighters from the Netherlands, and Mirage jets from France. Eight Ukrainian children who had been seized from their families were returned home.

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Roundup: Cautious optimism on trade barriers

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Anita Anand told reporters yesterday that she is making progress with provinces when it comes to eliminating interprovincial trade barriers, which sounds great. In fact, she claims that some of those barriers could be “wiped away” in the next thirty days. It would be great news if that’s true, but I have my doubts because these barriers are incredibly difficult to harmonise around the country, and they’re mostly differing regulations, which are perfectly valid exercise of provincial powers. They’re extremely difficult to harmonize because sometimes they differ for a reason. Kevin Milligan explains in this thread if you click through. (He also throws cold water on the notion that we could or should join the EU).

Glad we got through the tariff emergency (at least the first wave of it….). Also glad that people are bringing creativity, energy, and determination to figuring out a medium and long-run response.But I want to throw cold water on three ideas I've seen floated. I'll explain…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T20:24:14.385Z

I have to say that I am very curious regarding the method by which Anand is securing these changes, because I have heard no chatter about provinces being willing to surrender some of their provincial sovereignty in order to eliminate some of these barriers. I have also heard nothing about any kind of common regulatory body that could make determinations and that the provinces would adhere to, because they’ve all eschewed a common securities regulator, which should be low-hanging fruit for regulatory harmonisation, and yet… That would seem to imply that they have been establishing some sort of framework around mutual recognition of standards or credentials, but as of yet we have no real details.

As one example from that story: size and weight regulations for transport trucks.There is a very good reason that BC has detailed rules about snow chains for trucks and other provs may not. We have snowy mountains; some provs do not….www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T20:36:21.924Z

…so this doesn't mean we can't have a Canada-wide standard for truck size/weight. It means you really have to work hard to ensure the standard makes sense for each prov.If you get this wrong, people die. Regs that are too loose result in trucking accidents. So it takes work to get it right.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T20:40:05.709Z

The other note of caution I would make is that even if these barriers were reduced or eliminated, it would take time to reorient supply chains east-to-west rather than north-to-south, so there would be no immediate cushioning effect from any Trump tariffs. People will need to have realistic expectations about what this will achieve, particularly in the short-to-medium term.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is blaming an explosion at a draft office in Khmelnytskyi region that killed one person and wounded several others as a series of Russian spies orchestrating attacks. 150 Ukrainian POWs were returned in a prisoner swap with Russia. Here are some of the details about how Ukrainians captured two North Korean soldiers fighting in Kursk region. Ukrainians are also noting a marked improvement in the accuracy of North Korean missiles fired at Ukraine.

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