OTTAWA – Moscow has again summoned Canada’s top diplomats to Russia, this time over the Trudeau government’s seizure of a giant Russian cargo plane.
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Russia says it has subpoenaed Canadian chargé d’affaires Brian Ebel to tell him Ottawa’s plans face “the most serious repercussions”.
This comes two days after Moscow warned that ties with Canada were “close to breaking” over the matter, and three months after the Kremlin called the same diplomat over Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s comments on regime change in Russia.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Kiev, Ukraine over the weekend, where he announced Canada had officially seized an aircraft that had been on the tarmac at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport since February 2022.
In an English-language statement released on Thursday, Moscow said the move “remains tantamount to an attempt at blatant robbery” and that the plane was “disgracefully seized” while Ottawa is attempting to transfer the plane or its value to Ukraine.
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A year ago, Canada became the first G7 country to enact legislation allowing Ottawa not only to confiscate assets from sanctioned individuals, but also to confiscate property and redirect the proceeds to victims of a sanctioned regime.
The law was never applied, but Trudeau said Ottawa plans to start the process to seize the huge Antonov AN-124 from Russia’s Volga-Dnepr company and divert the funds or the plane itself to help Ukraine.
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