• Only in Russia will the decision to lift the sanctions be viewed as a sign of weakness.
• First, due to a wholly unacceptable exception to the sanctions regime against Russia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to call Canada’s ambassador to visit.
• It concerns more than just a single Nord Stream turbine that Canada should not have given away but nonetheless did.

Only in Russia will the decision to lift the sanctions be viewed as a sign of weakness. That’s what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised address.

First, due to a wholly unacceptable exception to the sanctions regime against Russia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to call Canada’s ambassador to visit. It concerns more than just a single Nord Stream turbine that Canada should not have given away but nonetheless did. Actually, turn over to Russia. It has to do with customary laws.

What exclusions will a terrorist state want tomorrow or the day after tomorrow if it can get such a concession from the sanctions regime? This query carries a lot of risk. Additionally, it poses a threat to not only Ukraine but to all of the democratic world.

Moscow will only see the move to provide an exception to the sanctions as a sign of weakness. This is how they think. Now there can be no question that Russia will attempt to entirely stop the flow of gas to Europe at the most critical time, not only to curtail it as much as possible. This is what is currently being triggered, and this is what we need to prepare for.

Because the Russian leadership views each compromise made under these circumstances as justification for applying more sustained pressure.

Of course, this choice of a single turbine, which causes a number of additional issues, can still be changed. In the oil industry, Russia has never followed the norms, and it won’t do so now unless it feels strong.

In the Donetsk region’s Chasiv Yar city, debris removal goes on all day. Prior to yesterday, two high-rise buildings were attacked by Russian terrorists; as of right now, 31 fatalities are reported to have occurred. Nine were kept alive.

The Russian army launched additional, devastating assaults against Kharkiv. A residential structure was struck by another missile, completely destroying one block. Five persons were murdered as the occupiers used rocket artillery to shell the Saltivka and Kyiv neighborhoods in the morning.

The Donetsk and Luhansk regions both continued to see extremely intense fighting while the Odesa region was struck by rockets.

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