U.K. foreign minister says allied response to Ukraine invasion sends message to world’s tyrants

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the international community’s united opposition to Russia’s war in Ukraine sends a strong message to tyrants around the world that NATO does not cut and tear in the face of threats.

“We have to make sure the message we send to anyone watching is that we defend the concept of territorial integrity, that we defend the rule of law, that we defend the UN Charter,” James Cleverly told the CBC News Network. Power & Politics Thursday.

“Anyone who has witnessed our response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine knows how strong the international community, the UK and Canada, and our friends and allies are, how strongly we have dealt with this,” he told host Katie Simpson.

Cleverly, who is the UK’s secretary of state for foreign affairs, Commonwealth and development, is in Toronto this week as part of a visit to the United States and Canada.

He told CBC News that the international community could not waver in support for Ukraine because of the fight to expel Russian forces.

In a smart move for Simpson, he issued the warning to officials in the US earlier this week during a conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The point I made when I was in America is that we have made a commitment to support the Ukrainians until they successfully defend their homeland against this Russian invasion,” he said.

“And if we fail to do that, then the signal we’re going to send to every potential attacker anywhere in the world is that we don’t have the patience, we don’t have the strategic resilience to keep this up until the job is done. done.

“And I think it will make the world a more dangerous place and more expensive for human life, as well as money.”

WATCH | Response to Russia sending a strong message to the world: British foreign secretary

China is watching

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told CBC News Network Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday he believed that China was one of the autocratic regimes that was studying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said he feared Beijing was using lessons learned from Russia’s struggle in Ukraine to advance its own plans for Taiwan.

“I think what the Chinese have learned [the war in Ukraine] is the weakness of the Russian military in order to strengthen itself in the future attack on Taiwan,” Wu told Barton.

“Of course, that would be the wrong lesson, because war means destruction.”

Last week, during a press conference after a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Japan and Canada “strongly agree” that there will be no attempt to change the international “status quo” through violence – although he did not specifically mention Taiwan .

“This should not happen anywhere, including in Asia,” he said.

Cleverly argued that the Russian invasion had strengthened NATO.

“Vladimir Putin hopes to destroy NATO as a defense alliance, and what we’re seeing is NATO coming together and two new countries applying to join NATO as a direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

WATCH | Military aid to Ukraine has ‘grown’: British foreign secretary

Sen. Peter Boehm, chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee and a former senior diplomat, said the strength of the allies’ response to the invasion proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assumption of war – which would be quick, if Russian natural gas supplies. can be weaponized, that the alliance will lack staying power – they are false.

“What has happened is that the amount of G7 coordination that has not been done before is spilling over into NATO,” he said. “NATO is a defense alliance and not a war. It’s a war that Russia started, which they thought they could win quickly. And they failed.”

Call for a tank

Canada has provided more than $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the invasion began. Ottawa announced $500 million for a missile defense system and 200 armored vehicles in recent weeks.

Ukraine says it needs several hundred NATO-standard heavy tanks to fight off invading Russian forces. Trudeau has not offered to send tanks.

Canada has 82 German-made Leopard 2 tanks – but is among the few countries that cannot export them to Ukraine unless Germany signs a donation.

Trudeau did not object to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine if Germany refused to object to the donation of military vehicles sold to Canada.

The issue will be on the table at Friday’s meeting of Ukraine’s Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. There, representatives of countries that provide military support to Ukraine will hear directly from Ukrainian officials about what the country needs to continue the war.

“There is a lot more military support for Ukraine than just tanks,” Cleverly said. He added that Canada has been working with its allies to coordinate military support, to avoid gaps in critical supplies.

That coordination is critical, he said, because Ukraine’s material requirements have changed since the war began. At first, he said, Ukraine asked for donations of Javelin anti-tank missiles and training, but its needs changed as the nature of the conflict changed.

“Then the air defense system becomes the thing that Ukrainians need the most,” he said. “Then the ability to fix energy and water infrastructure is a priority.

“And now we’re looking at heavy battlefield armor, tanks and artillery. So … the requirements are evolving … and that evolution is being done in conjunction with our friends and allies in NATO.”