Russia-Ukraine situation ‘extremely volatile’, Joly says as cyberattacks raise concern

Canada's foreign affairs minister says the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remains high amid a series of cyberattacks Tuesday.

Canada’s foreign affairs minister says the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remains high as cyberattacks undermined earlier optimism Tuesday that the Kremlin might be drawing down its military forces.

“The latest information I have is that the threat is real and imminent,” Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told The Canadian Press Tuesday. “Everybody’s taking this by the hour. Things have been moving; the situation is extremely volatile.”

Joly said Canada and its NATO allies want to see actual proof that Russia has reduced its 130,000-strong troop deployment along Ukraine’s borders beyond video imagery of Russian heavy artillery being loaded onto transports with no specific details about where that might be happening.

“We even think that this could be a campaign of disinformation launched by Russia,” she said.

On Tuesday, after a meeting in Moscow with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he doesn’t want war and is looking to hold peaceful discussions with the West to ease what has become its worst crisis with Russia since the Cold War.

Putin said he was willing to talk further about limiting the deployment of intermediate range missiles in Europe, and other transparency and confidence-building measures.

“We’ll use every single way to launch diplomatic conversations. But meanwhile, Russia needs to show their intent by de-escalating. That’s really, really important,” Joly said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels that there were no signs of Russian troop levels dropping on the Ukrainian borders, but there was still reason to be cautiously optimistic about the diplomatic efforts.