Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with French Senate President Gerard Larcher (not pictured) in the Kremlin on April 5, 2016 in Moscow, Russia. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
OTTAWA — Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada says Vladimir Putin is laying a propaganda foundation to wage a broader war against the West — one he says will be far beyond Russia’s aggression against his own country.
Envoy Andriy Shevchenko tells The Canadian Press that’s why it is so important that NATO decided this week to bolster its land forces in its three Baltic member countries and Poland.
Shevchenko is also calling on NATO to take concrete steps to fight the “hybrid war” that the Russian president is already waging against the West.
Shevchenko says that involves Russia undermining the sovereignty of various countries through an information war, and financing radical and nationalist parties in Europe, which can be destabilizing.
He also says there’s an opportunity for Canada to play a larger role in helping find a solution to the two-year-old Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and Moscow’s ongoing backing of separatist rebels in his country’s east.
Shevchenko says the conflict is still simmering, with regular clashes claiming lives and ongoing attacks on the infrastructure of international monitors who are trying to enforce a shaky ceasefire.
