OTTAWA – EuroMaidan Ottawa, an Ottawa-based solidarity group with the pro-Western and pro-democracy movement in Ukraine, on May 5 condemned the actions of former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien for holding a secret meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on April 30, opening up what appears to be a parallel track of dialogue around the official voice of the government of Canada.
The meeting was not sanctioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Cabinet, and no details have come forth other than a Kremlin spokesperson saying that the two men have “friendly relations,” a news release from EuroMaidan Ottawa noted.
“This is not a time for show-boating or end-runs on Canadian foreign policy, which has rightly condemned Russia’s imperialist aggression in Ukraine,” said EuroMaidan Ottawa co-founder Slava Bezverkhnyev. “The government of Canada has been standing up for the people of Ukraine and has constricted official dealings with the Kremlin to send a signal that Russia’s invasion of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are not acceptable. What is a former Canadian PM doing, having his own side-chats with a dangerous imperialist tyrant?”
EuroMaidan Ottawa’s Anton Sestritsyn, a native of Crimea who now resides in Ottawa, said “Ukraine is facing a humanitarian crisis, a refugee crisis, and an ongoing low-boil war, and one person is responsible: Vladimir Putin. Renegade efforts by a former Canadian politician to circumvent a united NATO-EU stance against Russia’s irredentist aggression cannot be tolerated. We have been volunteering and running fund-raisers to support refugees or send sleeping bags and first aid kits for volunteer soldiers, while a millionaire Canadian politician is cozying up with the man responsible for all this carnage and strife – that is not acceptable.”
The National Post, a Canadian newspaper reported: “The meeting was a slap to the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which has moved to politically isolate the Russian leader, blaming him for the unrest in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year.”