Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly says she and her department did not know intelligence reports delivered weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in which diplomats in Kyiv were told that Ukrainians working for the Canadian embassy there were likely on lists of people Moscow intended to arrest or kill. The Globe and Mail reported earlier this week that after receiving the information, Canadian diplomats received clear instructions from Ottawa on how to proceed: Do not share any of the information with Ukrainian staff members, despite the seemingly dire situation; and don’t help them leave. “Ethically, we have an obligation to our locally committed staff,” Ms. Jolie said Wednesday at a news conference in Montreal, when asked about The Globe’s report. He added that Global Affairs Canada is in the midst of an internal process looking at this and other issues. “At no time have I or the department had any information targeting locally employed personnel,” he said. “We never got that information. [Not] me, not my team, not the department.” Canada Freed Ukraine Embassy Employees Despite Potential Russian Hit List Mélanie Joly calls on China to de-escalate tensions after Pelosi visits Taiwan After receiving the information in January, according to three diplomatic sources, embassy officials raised concerns about the Russian threat with their superiors in Ottawa, only to be told by senior Global Affairs officials that Canada had no responsibility — known in policy terms as a “duty of care” – to Ukrainian employees in this situation and that the government did not want to set a precedent of protecting local embassy staff. The Globe is not naming the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. In the weeks after receiving the information, Canadian embassy staff were evacuated first to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on February 12, and then to Poland on February 24, hours after the Russian invasion began. Ukrainian staff members stayed behind in Kyiv, fearing for their lives and angry at the way they were treated, the sources said. Canada continued to pay the staff members and none of them are known to have died in the war. At the press conference, Ms. Joly said Global Affairs is looking into whether Canada has the same duty of care to locally hired staff at foreign embassies and consulates as it does to members of the Canadian foreign service. “I know they exist debated within the department whether that duty of care applies to locally employed staff,” he said. In a statement, Ms Jolie’s spokesman Adrien Blanchard said the minister would have acted had he known the content of the information. “If the Minister had information about locally employed staff facing immediate threat, she would have taken the necessary steps to keep them safe,” he said. It is possible that Ms Jolie was unaware of Global Affairs’ decision to drop its Ukrainian staff, according to one of the diplomatic sources. However, the minister should take an interest in life-threatening situations and should involve staff members in these matters, the diplomat said. The intelligence came from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. Wesley Wark, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, said the information he had to be in the minister’s office. “If the minister claims she ignored some Five Eyes warnings, that in itself is a terrible bureaucratic failure of her department that needs to be put right,” he said. The alarming information that Russia had drawn up lists of Ukrainians to arrest or kill is entirely in line with the way Russian security services operate, he said. “[It] should have been more than enough to force a quick decision to provide security for our Ukrainian personnel,” he added. “But instead we abandoned them, to our shame.” Ms. Jolie was in Kyiv in January and met with Canadian embassy staff. In the same month, he also met with leaders of NATO, the European Union and Ukraine in Europe. In late February, she attended the Munich Security Conference with her NATO and Five Eyes counterparts. During the conference on February 18, US media released intelligence reports detailing the Russian lists. Ms. Jolie returned to Canada on February 20. On March 2, he traveled to Poland and met again with Ukrainian embassy staff. In a tweet Tuesday, Roman Waschuk, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, called Global Affairs’ treatment of Ukrainian staff members “inappropriate behavior.” Ukrainian staff members – some of whom have returned to their posts in Kyiv – said they could not respond to requests for comment because of an internal hunt to find The Globe’s unnamed sources. Several said they feared speaking out would cost them their jobs. Michael Chong, the Conservatives’ foreign affairs critic, said in a statement Wednesday that Canada’s treatment of its Ukrainian personnel underscores a troubling trend. “The minister indicated that she was not aware that local staff in Ukraine were facing direct threats from Russia. Two months ago, he was unaware that a senior Canadian government official attended a party at the Russian embassy. It’s a worrying pattern of lack of awareness of what’s going on in her own department,” he said. NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson said the situation suggests that, when faced with difficult circumstances, the Liberal government is walking away from moral responsibilities. “They did this to the Ukrainians and when Kabul fell, they left Afghans working as interpreters for the Canadian government to deal with the Taliban,” she said in a statement. Canada is not alone in its treatment of local embassy staff in Ukraine. Five Eyes members Britain, the US and Australia also appear to have left local staff at risk. New Zealand, another member of the Five Eyes, does not have an embassy in Ukraine. Diplomats at the British embassy in Kyiv were deeply unhappy with the way their Ukrainian colleagues were treated, according to British media, and made their feelings clear to officials in London. British staff told the Independent in March that they feared some of their Ukrainian colleagues might be Russian targets. Ukrainians working at the British embassy were initially told that they would not qualify for a British visa unless they had close ties to the UK. the UK” American diplomats warned some of their Ukrainian staff members about the danger they faced, sources told The Globe. But some Ukrainian staff at the US embassy accused State Department officials of reneging on promises of support as they sought to escape the Russian invasion. “Our families are separated, many are sheltering in basements to stay alive, some are fighting on the battlefields, some are displaced, children are showing signs of trauma stress… and none of us can sleep through the night,” wrote one letter from Ukraine. staff members working with the US embassy, according to a Foreign Policy report. Nadia Teriokhina, a Ukrainian staff member at the Australian embassy, was photographed with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese near her damaged home on July 4 as she reunited with her boss, Australian Ambassador Bruce Edwards, the Sydney Herald reported. “We didn’t know what to do, how or where to run,” Ms Teriokhina told the newspaper. The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. 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