While Trump determines on thaw, Trudeau slides down to a new cold war

Responding to journalists during his press conference in Sutherlands River, Nova Scotia, on July 17, 2018, following the U.S.-Russia Summit in Helsinki, Justin Trudeau again denounced Putin’s Russia.

The Canadian Prime Minister specifically mentioned the illegal annexation of Crimea, the encouragement of the Donbass separatism from Ukraine, the interference in Syria and the support for the Assad regime there, as well as the chemical attack in the UK against British people among those Russian actions that Canada remained strongly opposed to. He also referred to 200 Canadian soldiers, helping train the Ukrainian army, and 450 Canadian troops, forming the leadership of the NATO battlegroup in Latvia, as deployed to Eastern Europe against a possible Russian aggression. At the same time, the Canadian Prime Minister didn’t comment on Trump’s appreciation of Russia, after having been asked for a comment by the journalist. “We condemn Russia and the way Vladimir Putin engages in international affairs,” repeated Justin Trudeau on the existing Canadian position on the issue.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Russian Presidents also held a press conference in the upshot of their summit on July 16, 2018. Despite the fact that no particular agreement was reached, both Putin and Trump discussed a broad range of issues which the two countries can potentially cooperate on, including Syria, Israel, cyber security, etc. The U.S. President suggested taking a political risk to improve U.S.-Russia relations which should have been done already by the previous administration, according to him. In the course of the press conference, Trump congratulated Putin on Russia’s organization of the World Cup and doubted Russia’s alleged meddling into U.S. Presidential campaign in 2016.