Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Chinese EVs are good for the world. Biden says they’re bad for America. 

Why the Solomon Islands election matters to China and the U.S.

Biden calls ally Japan ‘xenophobic’ like China, Russia, at campaign event

World Press Freedom Day, 2024

How Trump convinces Republicans to adopt extreme views

Campuses are grappling with the Gaza war. So are our columnists.

This masterpiece ‘Birth of Venus’ probably isn’t of Venus at all

The beginner’s illustrated guide to watching an F1 race

Wait, what is Stephen A. Smith talking about? Find out with our quiz.

The 6 best things to do with kids in the D.C. area this weekend 

The 33 best things to do in D.C. this weekend and next week

Trevor Williams’s escape act helps Nationals blank Rangers 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Miss Manners: Offering my bedroom to guests

Ask Amy: My wife’s sister confessed her feelings for me

Carolyn Hax: Will request for a postnup offend much younger wife?

NASA moon capsule suffered extensive damage during 2022 test flight

Russian state media ramping up English, Spanish presence on TikTok, study finds

Apple is behind in AI and killed its self-driving car project. What’s next?

That time football legend, rig-driving eligible bachelor Biden was arrested

Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true.

Eighty percent of Ukraine-Israel bill will be spent in U.S. or by U.S. military

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Local sports networks go dark mid-game amid dispute with Comcast 

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Taxes are inevitable. Paying to prepare them doesn’t have to be.

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

I learned to heal my sadness by cradling dying chickens 

Trump hush money trial live updates: Hope Hicks testifies about 2016 campaign, women

Steve Russell

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — Three days after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, an Antonov-124 jet landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport here to deliver 77 tons of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> testing kits.

On Feb. 27, 2022, before the AN-124’s scheduled departure, Canada barred Russian aircraft from entering or exiting its airspace — stranding the plane at the country’s busiest air hub. The government eventually imposed sanctions on its operator, Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Airlines.

Visible from a highway, the aircraft — one of the world’s largest cargo planes, with a Russian flag painted on its tail fin and a blue stripe running the length of its 226-foot white body — has been a curiosity here, drawing attention for racking up a sky-high airport parking ticket.

Now, it’s caught in a larger fight over new legislation through which Canada has claimed authority to seize the frozen assets of entities under sanctions, even if they’re not linked to any crime, and use them to the benefit of foreign states “adversely affected” by breaches of international security.

In June, the government ordered the seizure of the plane. Authorities want to work with Kyiv to use it “to compensate victims of human rights abuses, restore international peace and security or rebuild Ukraine.”

The new powers are the first of their kind in the Group of Seven industrialized nations, and the government has admitted that the “<a href="https://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2023/2023-06-21/html/sor-dors120-eng.html" target=_blank>new regime is untested and will likely face legal challenges</a>.” The Kremlin called the seizure “<a href="https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1887247/" target=_blank>cynical and shameless theft</a>.”

As the West looks to use frozen Russian assets to help Kyiv defeat the invaders and rebuild Ukraine, the dispute is being watched closely by allies and foes alike.

U.S. intensifies push to use Moscow’s $300 billion war chest for Kyiv

“Canada is absolutely pushing the envelope with respect to sanctions law,” said William Pellerin, a partner in the international trade group at the business law firm McMillan in Ottawa. “Other jurisdictions have considered doing the same thing and concluded that they could not do so.”

John W. Boscariol, head of the international trade group at McCarthy Tétrault in Toronto, said Canada, as a middle power, is “punching above its weight in terms of the scope of these measures.” Its allies, he said, “are watching very carefully to see how this proceeds.”

The World Bank estimated in March that Ukraine’s reconstruction could cost at least $411 billion. Kyiv’s allies in the West want Russia to foot that bill.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen last month signaled support for a European proposal to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/11/us-intensifies-push-use-moscows-300-billion-war-chest-kyiv/" target=_blank>tax the wartime earnings of the $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank reserves</a> held in the West and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine.

“Countries are facing some of the same issues they faced after World War II,” said John E. Smith, a former director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “How do you take assets that belong to aggressor nations to help rebuild nations that were destroyed or damaged? There are no easy answers to these questions under our legal systems.”

Russia is using old oil tankers to bypass export sanctions, risking spills

U.S. law allows the president to seize and vest some foreign assets when the country is “engaged in armed hostilities or has been attacked by a foreign country or foreign nationals.”

The government may also seize and forfeit assets if a court determines there is probable cause that the assets are connected to crime — they’re the proceeds of fraud, for example, or sanctions violations or money laundering.

Congress last year approved and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a> signed legislation that allows the Justice Department in a narrow set of circumstances to direct the proceeds of certain forfeited assets to the State Department to benefit Ukraine.

Some Justice officials have said an expansion of these powers would be helpful.

Attorney General Merrick Garland in February authorized the transfer of $5.4 million seized and forfeited from the accounts of a Russian oligarch charged with violating U.S. sanctions to the State Department to “support the people of Ukraine.”

Canada’s new powers, an expansion of its existing sanctions law, are far more extensive.

They allow the government to seize frozen assets that are situated in Canada and are owned, held or controlled directly or indirectly by an entity on its sanctions list. There’s no requirement that the assets have a link to a crime.

The government may then petition a court for a forfeiture order, dispose of the property and use the proceeds to rebuild a foreign state or compensate its people.

“We think it’s really important to extend our legal authorities because it is going to be really, really important to find the money to rebuild Ukraine,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said last year. “I can think of no more appropriate source of that funding than confiscated Russian assets.”

Freeland, who has Ukrainian roots, was invited to an April meeting of European finance ministers to explain Canada’s approach, according to a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings. U.K. lawmakers have <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-06-27/debates/1557FA76-F69E-4E14-B459-10BD7BBB0917/RepurposingRussianAssetsToRebuildUkraine" target=_blank>debated</a> whether to copy it.

Analysts say the new regime faces likely challenges on several grounds, including over whether the expropriation of private property is acceptable under international legal norms, violates constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure or breaches bilateral treaties.

But some believe it can survive those challenges. In a June <a href="https://wrmcouncil.org/publications/leading-by-example/" target="_blank">working paper</a>, Dalhousie University law professor Robert J. Currie, World Refugee &amp; Migration Council President Fen Osler Hampson and former Canadian justice minister Allan Rock wrote that Canada has “compelling and persuasive arguments on its side, along with the ‘spirit of the law’ since the measures in question align entirely with the fundamental purpose of international law.”

“Canada’s measures may be creative,” they wrote, “but they are by no means illegal.”

The government has announced the use of the new powers in two cases but has given few updates.

In December, authorities ordered the restraint of $26 million in a Canadian bank account from Granite Capital Holdings, a company that it says is owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, upon whom Canada imposed sanctions last year.

A global divide on the Ukraine war is deepening

Asked by a parliamentary committee about the case in June, Alexandre Lévêque, an assistant deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada, said it’s “a complex undertaking” because the law is new and officials are prioritizing maximizing the “chances of successes” over speed.

“Russian oligarchs are quite adept at hiding their assets,” Lévêque said. “In this case, a number of international jurisdictions are requesting access to the account. International law and the laws of the respective countries come into play.”

Volga-Dnepr said in August it had notified Canadian authorities that it wished to settle the dispute under a provision of a 1989 investment treaty between the two countries that deals with disputes arising from expropriation.

“If the dispute is not resolved within six months … Volga-Dnepr will formally initiate arbitration proceedings,” the company said in a statement. Volga-Dnepr wants its airplane back and “remains open to negotiations.”

Volga-Dnepr did not respond to a request for comment. If the government manages to win the plane’s forfeiture, Transport Canada has said, it will require maintenance before it can take off.

Global Affairs Canada did not respond to questions about the status of the two cases but defended the regime and said it has several “safeguards.”

“Numerous procedural fairness steps for the owner and any affected third parties are included in the asset seizure and forfeiture regime and associated court proceedings,” spokesman Jean-Pierre J. Godbout said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Canada believes in the rule of law and will follow court decisions.”

The Canadian approach has raised broader questions about the purpose of sanctions.

Sanctions are “like a carrot,” said Jessica B. Horwitz, a partner at Bennett Jones in Toronto. “If you stop engaging in the bad behavior, the assets will be unfrozen. … The problem, potentially, with forfeiture is that if those assets are forfeited, the incentive to change behavior doesn’t exist anymore.”

Smith, the former Office of Foreign Assets Control director, said countries are striving to balance “a bunch of relatively bad options.”

“You’re balancing reducing your bargaining chip to change behavior against the need to rebuild Ukraine and really hold those responsible for the damage to Ukraine to account,” he said.

Canada has increasingly turned to sanctions as a foreign policy tool.

“There’s a collective holding of breath to see how this plays out,” said Clifford Sosnow, the chair of the international trade group at Fasken in Toronto. “There’s a lot of fog associated with the regime, and because there’s fog, there’s always the potential for harmful unintended consequences.”

European Union-Canada Young Journalist Award, 2015

University of Toronto: BA, History and Italian Studies; Master of Global Affairs; Fellowship in Global Journalism 

Amanda Coletta is a Toronto-based correspondent who covers Canada and the Caribbean for The Washington Post. She previously worked in London, first at the Economist and then the Wall Street Journal.

Amanda Coletta

washpost

Canada wants to give Russian Volga-Dnepr Antonov-124 plane to Ukraine

the-washington-post

Pearson International Airport that services Toronto

Contributor

Toronto Star via Getty Images

War In Ukraine

Africa

Americas

Asia

Europe

Middle East

World

prism://prism.query/site,/world/americas&limit=20

The Washington Post provides the latest information and analysis of breaking news stories from the South America and Canada. Includes news coverage from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/world/&limit=20

The Washington Post World section provides information and analysis of breaking world news stories. In addition to our world news and video, Post World News offers discussions and blogs on major international news and economic issues.