To: Wharf Rat who wrote (325694 ) 3/10/2025 8:18:22 AM From: Lane3 4 RecommendationsRecommended By
Respond to washingtonpost.com We know how Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks about Ukraine . In speeches and written manifestos , Putin has rejected the legitimacy of his neighbor’s sovereignty and even its distinct identity. He sees Ukraine as part of a greater Russian nation, and Ukrainian history as a footnote to a greater Russian patrimony. Ukrainian culture, in his view, is an aberration that consolidated mostly due to Bolshevik social engineering. The integrity of Ukraine’s borders mean nothing to Putin’s Russia, which has been occupying Ukrainian territory since 2014. And the independent, democratic aspirations of Ukrainian people are all the more anathema, cast by Putin as simply the agenda of “Nazis” and outside foreign actors.told reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon, suggesting Moscow was pressing its perceived advantage. “He wants to get it ended.” Russia, he repeated, “has all the cards.”seeming rupture Trump provoked in U.S.-Canadian relations can’t be explained just through his ideological mercantilism and belief in tariffs as an effective, coercive tool. Trump has a similar ax to grind with Mexico, but he has only questioned Canada’s necessity to be independent and sovereign. Canadian officials, including outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are convinced that Trump’s bluster about making Canada the 51st state is genuine and that he sees wrecking the Canadian economy as a pathway to future U.S. annexation.According to the New York Times , Trump, who has repeatedly described Trudeau as “governor,” aired out more than just his known grievances about trade imbalances in phone calls with the Canadian prime minister early last month. Trump told Trudeau “that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary,” the Times reported, adding that “he offered no further explanation.”Trump isn’t about to pull a Putin and infiltrate “little green men” across the Canadian border. While there’s no rattling of sabers or mobilization of forces, the White House has been linked to several potential hostile moves, including the possibility of cutting Canada out of the long-standing “Five Eyes” intelligence- sharing network , scrapping existing agreements over the management of the Great Lakes, and major revisions of current military cooperation across the North American landmass.to my colleague Amanda Coletta .
