Russia attacks Ukraine, examining the Emergencies Act: In The News for Feb. 24

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Feb. 24 …

What we are watching in Canada …

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada condemns Russia’s egregious attack on Ukraine in the strongest possible terms.

In a statement issued late Wednesday, Trudeau called on Russia to immediately cease all hostile and provocative actions against Ukraine and withdraw all military and proxy forces from the country.

“These unprovoked actions are a clear further violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement reads. “They are also in violation of Russia’s obligations under international law and the Charter of the United Nations. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected and the Ukrainian people must be free to determine their own future.”

Earlier Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine and warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the action would lead to “consequences they have never seen.”

He said the attack was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine — a claim the U-S had predicted he would falsely make to justify an invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged global leaders to provide defense assistance to Ukraine and help protect its airspace from Russia.

Zelenskyy said that Russia “has unleased a war with Ukraine and the entire democratic world,” and asked for world leaders to provide large-scale defense support and to protect Ukraine’s airspace from the “aggressor.”

Trudeau said Russia’s actions will be met with severe consequences. He said he would be meeting Thursday with G7 partners and would work quickly with NATO and Canada’s allies “to collectively respond to these reckless and dangerous acts, including by imposing significant sanctions in addition to those already announced.”

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Also this …

The federal government has lifted the Emergencies Act but questions remain about what might be the long-term effects of invoking such extraordinary measures to quell protests. 

The financial measures carried out under the act, which included directing banks to freeze some protesters’ accounts, have been a particular target for criticism and one watcher warns the damage done will linger long after the initial protests are finished. 

Financial intelligence expert Kim Manchester says that banks will likely keep tracking those individuals flagged by the RCMP and their names could end up on private-sector third-party databases that banks rely on to mitigate anti-money laundering and terrorist financing.

Banks and other financial institutions were also directed to look into whether any clients seemed to be supporting the protests, and those monitoring actions could well continue, he said.

On a larger scale, Manchester says that the actions set a dangerous precedent of how government decides to go after protests, and leaves open the door to using the same tactics in the future.

He says allies will also be watching how the federal government used Fintrac and compare the actions against the protesters to the relatively few resources directed to financial crime generally. 

“There are lasting consequences to this. You don’t just pull out a fountain pain and sign a piece of paper and hope that it all goes away. It doesn’t work like that,” said Manchester, managing director of financial intelligence training company ManchesterCF.

For its part, the Canadian Bankers Association said that financial institutions moved quickly to unfreeze accounts after the RCMP cleared the individuals and entities flagged for concern, but that some accounts may still be frozen.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

ST. PAUL, Minn. _ A jury will resume deliberations this morning in the trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights after reaching no verdict in its first day.

Jurors met for about seven hours Wednesday with no decision on the charges against J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. All three are charged of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as fellow Officer Derek Chauvin pinned the 46-year-old Black man to the ground for 9 1/2 minutes with his knee on Floyd’s neck. Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter, and later pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge.

Kueng and Thao are also charged with failing to intervene in the May 25, 2020, killing that was captured on bystander video that triggered protests worldwide and a re-examination of racism and policing.

Prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments that the three officers “chose to do nothing” as Chauvin squeezed the life out of the 46-year-old Black man. Defense attorneys countered that the officers were too inexperienced, weren’t trained properly and did not wilfully violate Floyd’s rights. 

Prosecutors sought to show during the month-long trial that the officers violated their training, including when they failed to roll Floyd onto his side or give him CPR. They argued that Floyd’s condition was so serious that even bystanders without basic medical training could see he needed help.

But the defense said the Minneapolis Police Department’s training was inadequate and that the officers deferred to Chauvin as the senior officer at the scene.

Federal civil rights violations that result in death are punishable by up to life in prison or even death, but those sentences are extremely rare, and federal sentencing guidelines suggest the officers would get much less if convicted.

Lane, Kueng and Thao also face a separate trial in June on state charges alleging that they aided and abetted murder and manslaughter.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

MOSCOW _ Russian troops launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine on Thursday, as President Vladimir Putin cast aside international condemnation and sanctions and warned other countries that any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen.”

Ukrainian border guards released footage of what they said were Russian military vehicles moving in, and big explosions were heard in the capital Kyiv, Kharkiv in the east and Odesa in the west. As the Russian military claimed to have wiped out Ukraine’s entire air defenses in a matter of hours, Ukrainians fled some cities and European authorities declared Ukrainian air space an active conflict zone. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared martial law, saying Russia has targeted Ukraine’s military infrastructure. Ukrainians who had long braced for the prospect of an assault, while never knowing precisely when it would come, were urged to stay home and not to panic even as the country’s border guard agency reported an artillery barrage by Russian troops from neighbouring Belarus.

U.S. President Joe Biden pledged new sanctions to punish Russia for the aggression that the international community had expected for weeks but could not prevent through diplomacy.

Putin justified it all in a televised address, asserting that the attack was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine _ a false claim the U.S. had predicted he would make as a pretext for an invasion. He accused the U.S. and its allies of ignoring Russia’s demands to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and for security guarantees. He also claimed that Russia does not intend to occupy Ukraine but will move to “demilitarize” it and bring those who committed crimes to justice.

Biden in a written statement condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified attack,” and he promised that the U.S. and its allies would “hold Russia accountable.” The president said he planned to speak to Americans on Thursday after a meeting of the Group of Seven leaders. More sanctions against Russia were expected to be announced Thursday.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the assault as a “full-scale invasion” and said Ukraine will “defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”

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On this day in 1986 …

Tommy Douglas, remembered as the father of medicare, died at age 81. As Saskatchewan premier from 1944-61, he implemented Canada’s first public hospital insurance program. In 1962, a year after Douglas became the federal NDP leader, Saskatchewan introduced North America’s first socialized health plan.

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In entertainment …

LOS ANGELES _ The husband of a cinematographer shot and killed on the set of the film “Rust” says it’s “absurd” that Alec Baldwin believes he’s not to blame for the shooting and he was “so angry” when Baldwin didn’t accept responsibility.

The remarks made in excerpts released Wednesday from an interview with the “Today” show are the first public words from Matt Hutchins on the Oct. 21 death of his wife Halyna Hutchins.

“The idea that the person holding the gun and causing it to discharge is not responsible is absurd to me,” Matt Hutchins told ”Today” host Hoda Kotb in the interview that airs in full Thursday.

Baldwin said in a December interview with ABC News that he was pointing the gun at Halyna Hutchins at her instruction on the New Mexico set of the Western when it went off without his pulling the trigger, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.

“Watching him I just felt so angry,” Hutchins said. ”I was just so angry to see him talk about her death so publicly in such a detailed way and then to not accept any responsibility after having just described killing her.”

Baldwin said in his interview that “someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me.”

Matt Hutchins and his nine-year-old son are the plaintiffs in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed last week that names Baldwin, the film’s producers and others as defendants.

It alleges that Baldwin, who was also a producer on the film, and his co-producers showed “callous” disregard in the face of safety complaints, and their “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures” led directly to her death.

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Did you see this?

FREDERICTON _ A report from an oversight committee studying possible cases of a mysterious neurological disease in New Brunswick will be released Thursday.

Last March, New Brunswick health officials alerted the province’s doctors, nurses and pharmacists about a possible cluster of residents with an unknown and potentially new neurological syndrome with symptoms similar to those of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Since then, 48 people have been identified in the cluster, and families of the patients are to meet virtually with Health Minister Dorothy Shephard Thursday ahead of the report’s publication.

According to the New Brunswick Health Department, the first suspected case dates to 2015 but wasn’t identified until early 2020.

Symptoms included rapidly progressing dementia, muscle spasms, atrophy and a host of other complications. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was ruled out in the New Brunswick cases.

Of the original 48 patients, nine have died. The Health Department’s website says autopsies completed on six individuals confirmed they died of known causes or diseases.

Last October, Shephard raised questions about the existence of a mystery brain syndrome. “Forty-six of the 48 cases are from one neurologist. We need to make this bigger than one neurologist,” Shephard told reporters at the time. She said an epidemiological study found no known food, behaviour or environmental exposure that could have caused the symptoms.

The minister appointed a committee of six neurologists from the province to conduct a clinical review of the cases. In recent days, many of the patients in the cluster have received letters from the committee informing them they don’t have an unknown neurological condition and should contact their doctor for more details.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2022.

The Canadian Press