This article originally appeared in the Toronto Star.
By Marcus Kolga, April 30, 2024
Sanctions function like a prescribed course of medicine: their effectiveness hinges on sustained application and timely adjustments to ensure they precisely target and progressively weaken the ailment.
This ensures that the sanctions we impose do not merely symbolize disapproval but affect the desired outcome — the curtailing of Russia’s capacity to wage war in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Without enforcement, sanctions lose their potency, much like medication that isn’t taken as directed. Western governments must rigorously enforce sanctions by closing loopholes, denying waiver requests from morally vacant corporations and penalizing violations.
Last week’s revelation that the Canadian government granted Airbus Canada and Bombardier waivers to import Russian titanium is a glaring and embarrassing example of this.
Such exceptions do not only undermine the integrity of our sanctions regime but in the case of the exempted Russian titanium supplier, VSMPO-AVISMA, they directly support Russia’s military-industrial complex and the destruction of Ukraine and its people.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has adapted to sanctions; sidestepping many of the measures imposed by the international community by exploiting the moral flexibility of less ethical nations and authoritarian allies to create shadowy pathways that circumvent sanctions on gas, oil and technologies.
Worse yet are the Western companies that inadvertently support Russia’s efforts by continuing their business unabated, driven by greed, a stark absence of moral judgment, and with an apparent indifference to the humanitarian catastrophe that their finances help fuel. These interactions have provided Russia with economic lifelines, reinforcing the apathy of the Russian people to the Kremlin’s savage war, and allowing Vladimir Putin to sustain his barbaric war.
According to the February 2024 Canadian Global Affairs sanctions listing for Russia’s VSMPO-AVISMA, the company was initially sanctioned because it was found to have provided “components for Kalibr missiles and drones … to Russian soldiers and to the Russian Ministry of Defence.”
In other words, VSMPO-AVISMA supplies parts for the Russian missiles and drones that are being used to obliterate Ukrainian towns, cities, and civilians.
Airbus Canada and Bombardier’s choice to continue partnering with their lethal Russian supplier, contrasts starkly with the moral clarity of Boeing, which decisively cut off all its titanium imports from Russia in 2022.
Companies that prioritize profits over human lives must be held accountable, not given a free pass on sanctions violations; they should be subjected to public scrutiny and our most severe condemnation.
The Canadian government must resist the lure of corporate lobbying for sanctions exemptions the enable war and mass human rights abuse. Such waivers set a dangerous precedent, potentially triggering a stream of similar concessions and diluting the efficacy of our sanctions.
The rejection of Russian oligarch Igor Makarov’s request to be removed from Canada’s sanctions list — despite his purported secret disavowal of Putin — illustrates a correct and principled position.
In response to the morally corrupt corporations that are exploiting and enabling Russia’s war against Ukraine, Canada should spearhead the creation of an international coalition, akin to an Interpol for democracies, focused on co-ordinating and enforcing sanctions.
This body would ensure that sanctions are not just a series of empty proclamations but a cohesive, global strategy and tool to challenge Russian, Chinese and Iranian tyranny.
Canada’s innovative legislative efforts, led by figures such as Sen. Ratna Omidvar, to seize and repurpose frozen Russian assets within Canada’s borders should serve as a model for other nations. This proactive stance not only deprives criminal authoritarian regimes like Russia of resources but also channels those resources toward ending war and defending democracy and human rights.
To truly challenge the threat posed by authoritarian regimes like Russia, our sanctions must be unwavering, consistent, and universally upheld and we must not yield to corporate avarice.
The battle for Ukraine is not merely territorial but a test of the international community’s resolve in upholding global peace, justice and democratic values.
Marcus Kolga is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and director of DisinfoWatch.
