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Introduction – Nov 10, 2022

While the following Guardian report focuses on statements from Canada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, it omits some vital context.

Michael Chomiak (circled), grandfather of Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland at a party with Nazi propagandist Emil Gassner. Click to enlarge

Freeland has accused Russia of “war crimes” in Ukraine and while the Guardian makes note of Freeland’s Ukrainian ancestry it pointedly omits to elaborate.

So it makes no mention of the fact that Freeland’s Ukrainian grandfather Michael Chomiak actively collaborated with the Nazis.

According to RT:

Chomiak was a prominent Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and the editor-in-chief of a Ukrainian-language propaganda daily Krakivs’ki Visti. The outlet, published between 1940 and 1945, was funded directly by Nazi Germany and described by Canadian historian –  and Chomiak’s son-in-law –  John-Paul Himka as a “vehemently anti-Semitic” publication.

Even though President Zelensky and his regime’s backers are Jewish, paradoxically, strong pro-Nazi and anti Russian sentiment still persists among many of those who have been fighting for it. Ed

G20: Canada claims Russian delegation are personally responsible for ‘war crimes’ in Ukraine

The Guardian – Nov 10, 2022

Chrystia Freeland (centre). Click to enlarge

Canada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, has told Russian officials at a meeting of G20 finance ministers that she held them personally responsible for “war crimes” committed during Russia’s war in Ukraine, a western official said.

Freeland directly addressed the Russian delegation taking part in the meeting of the Group of 20 major economies, telling them on Friday: “It is not only generals who commit war crimes, it is the economic technocrats who allow the war to happen and to continue,” the official said.

Freeland, whose maternal grandparents were born in Ukraine, told the opening G20 session that the war was the “single biggest threat to the global economy right now”, the official said.

A day before the meeting, the US Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, set the tone, calling Russia’s war in Ukraine the “greatest challenge” to the global economy and saying members of Putin’s government “have no place” at the talks.

“We are seeing negative spillover effects from that war in every corner of the world, particularly with respect to higher energy prices and rising food insecurity,” she said.

Yellen was expected to press G20 allies for a price cap on Russian oil to choke off President Vladimir Putin’s war chest and pressure Moscow to end its invasion while bringing down energy costs.

The two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs from top economies started on the resort island of Bali under the shadow of a war that has roiled markets, spiked food prices and stoked breakneck inflation, a week after Moscow’s top diplomat walked out of talks with the forum’s foreign ministers.

The talks’ host warned delegates that failure to tackle energy and food crises would be catastrophic.

In her opening remarks, the Indonesian finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, called on ministers to work together with a spirit of “cooperation, collaboration and consensus” because “the world is watching” for solutions.

“The cost of our failure is more than we can afford,” she told delegates. “The humanitarian consequences for the world and for many low-income countries would be catastrophic.”

Top global finance figures are to discuss the rebound from the coronavirus pandemic, but the impact of the Ukraine war – weighing on an already brittle global recovery – will top the agenda.

Both the Russian finance minister, Anton Siluanov, and the Ukrainian finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, are participating virtually in the meeting.

Continues …