Prime Minister Justin Trindade says Russian diplomats in Canada have been spreading propaganda about Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, but he is reluctant to deport them because he fears the Kremlin retaliation would undermine the Russian intelligence service in Canada. “There will always be an objective approach from the Russians to this,” he told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday. “I am not sure that the symbolic gesture of excluding Russian diplomats from what they are doing in Canada is worth the cost of losing our diplomats in Moscow.” Canada’s Western allies in Europe have deported more than 200 Russian diplomats following reports of alleged war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bukha, which were discovered after Russian troops withdrew. Mr Trinto told reporters in Ottawa that Canada had considered pursuing its own deportations, but was reluctant to do so because it feared it would undermine the Canadian diplomatic mission’s ability to act as Ottawa’s eyes and ears in Moscow. His comments came as the social media platform Twitter reported that it had found that an April 3 tweet from the Russian embassy in Canada violated its policy against manipulative, misleading change or fabricated media. The Prime Minister acknowledged that Russian representatives in Canada are spreading lies here about the full-scale invasion of Moscow by Ukraine. “We know that Russian diplomats in Canada are not helping. “They are promoting pro-Putin propaganda in a time of conflict, of war.” “We have to weigh the negative versus the positive of having great Canadians in Moscow who give us feedback on what the Russian people are doing, are connected to civil society and understand and support Canadians and others who happen to be in Russia there. The space. year.” The Ministry of Global Affairs offers conflicting figures on how many accredited Russian diplomats are currently in Canada. With one count it is 85 and with another it is about 50. The department could not immediately explain which number is correct. Similarly, the federal government has not been able to immediately say how many Canadian diplomats are working in Moscow. Mr Trinto said Canada reduced the number of diplomats in Moscow in 2014 after Russia invaded and annexed the Ukrainian peninsula and again after the poisoning of a Russian spy and his daughter in 2018 in England for which Western countries have blamed the Kremlin. The April 3 tweet from the Russian embassy in Canada, which was criticized on Twitter, was an attempt to challenge Western media reports of atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine. Western governments have denounced the Bukha killings as a war crime, and Ukrainian officials say a mass grave from a church there contains between 150 and 300 bodies. Satellite images taken weeks ago in the city, north of the capital Kiev, show the bodies of civilians on a street. Russia has denied that it targeted civilians and said the evidence was “directed”. The offensive tweet of the Moscow mission to Canada included a video clip saying that it showed a corpse “moving its hand”, as if to suggest that the atrocities were fake. The Ukrainian-Canadian Congress, a lobby group for people of Ukrainian descent in Canada, has said it is “disappointed” that Mr Trinto has refused to act. “We do not understand why the Prime Minister believes that there is value in Canada to have an Embassy in Moscow to transmit the latest Russian lies to us. “What did our Canadian diplomats in Moscow do to support Ukraine or help end the war?” Said Ihor Michalchyshyn, executive director of the UCC. – With files from Reuters Our Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
