"And we're not taking the Russian threat seriously."

"It's waging this war on Western democracies as a whole. The idea is not just to be allowed to win in Ukraine. It would be a big mistake to draw the lesson that if we maybe stop helping Ukraine, things will be fine and we're going to go back to a normal relationship with Russia."

"I think what's much more likely are things getting blown up in countries that are closer to Russia in eastern Europe. [Russia wants to signal] that maybe it's not worth it for NATO to defend three small Baltic countries. It's definitely a test of NATO's resolve."

Maria Popova, associate professor of political science, McGill University

Associated Press

"[Western security officials] believe that two incendiary devices, shipped via DHL, were part of a covert Russian operation that ultimately aimed to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft flying to the U.S. and Canada, as Moscow steps up a sabotage campaign against Washington and its allies."

"Investigators and spy agencies in Europe have figured out how the devices -- electric massagers implanted with a magnesium-based flammable substance -- were made and concluded that they were part of a wider Russian plot." 

"[Security officials are saying the devices] sent to the U.K. from Lithuania, appear to have been a test run to figure out how to get such incendiary devices aboard planes bound for North America."

The Wall Street Journal

According to the Wall Street Journal, the devices in question alarmed authorities when they ignited at DHL logistics hubs in Leipzig, Germany and Birmingham England this past July: "The explosions set off a multinational race to find the culprits." Subsequently four people were arrested by Polish authorities in connection with the fires, and "charged them with participating in sabotage or terrorist operations on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency".

 

Authorities in Poland have arrested four people in connection with an alleged plot to mail explosives to Canada and the United States. CBC still from video

 

"We have never heard any official accusations" of Russian involvement was the response by a Kremlin spokesman. As in: 'who ... us? ...' And according to Maria Popova, the Russia expert, the plot now revealed is meant to bring down aircraft on their way to Canada and the United States, but its purpose is not just related to Western opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but to completely erode Western democracies altogether, as inimical not only to the Kremlin's ambitions of territorial and influence expansion, but to remove the source of opposition entirely.

There will be, Ms. Popova predicts, an escalation of "hybrid attacks meant to chip away and erode NATO's unity". To that end, one possibility is that Canada will be confronted with "hostile moves" from Russia in the Arctic. "We're not fully aware that Russia is aggressive as opposed to insecure and defensive".  

"[The West keeps] hoping that restraint on our part will create goodwill in Russia, and I think that is just fundamentally mistaken. Only strength on our part can create respect and can contain Russia."

"They see that we're not, in fact, shoring up our capability to ... defend the Arctic. We're continuing to count on the NATO umbrella and count on the fact that the United States provides security for us."

"And we're not taking the Russian threat seriously."

Maria Popova, Russia expert

The DHL Air Hub, the air freight center at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany.   Heiko Rebsch / picture-alliance/dpa/AP file

Orwellian DoublespeakMeets Russian Resistance

"My country is committing a horrible crime in Ukraine that can have no justification."

"We all bear a part of responsibility. There is no good way out of that."

Sergei Utkin, head, strategic assessment, Institute of World Economy and International Relations 

"President Putin has made a decision to launch a special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine in order to liberate it from this yoke so that Ukrainians can be free in making choices about their future."

"[This is a limited military operation not to target civilians with aims to] liberate [Ukrainians from their pro-Western government."

  Vladimir Putin & Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister

"No one is going to occupy Ukraine. [Ukrainian troops must surrender and rid themselves of] this gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis that holed up in Kyiv."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

"Hitler was saying in 1941 that he was also out there to liberate people of the Soviet Union from the junta of Communists."

Andrei Makarevich, 68, frontman Russian rock band

"The judge [who sentenced him to 20 days in custody for resisting arrest at an antiwar demonstration in Moscow] couldn't raise her eyes to look at me when I asked."

"The police report is one big lie."

Ilya Fomintsev, founder, Moscow cancer hospital

 

"He [her son] was sent to the border and was told they would be there for a while. He has no idea where he would be deployed."

"Our boys had no idea where they were going. He thought it was just drills again."

Tatyana Denisyuk, eastern Siberia

A demonstrator wearing a face mask with a 'No to war' inscription stands in front of a line of police officers during a protest in central Saint Petersburg on Sunday. (Sergei Mikhailichenko/AFP via Getty Images)

Ordinary Russians by their thousands see through the transparent web of lies expressed by their president and his entourage, to villainize and discredit the current government of Ukraine under their president, Volodymyr Zelenski; a ruse to slander and turn Russian public opinion in favour of Vladimir Putin's punishing invasion against neighbouring Ukraine. A sudden, albeit expected yet disbelieved turn of events that shocked Russians almost as much as it did Ukrainians.

It is Ukraine that is bearing the vicious brunt of Vladimir Putin's cynical criminality; their lives and their country forced to take up arms against an enemy determined to jerk the country out of the democratic mould it has patterned itself toward, to alienate it from the West and coerce it violently back into the Russian embrace of a satellite without the power to select its own future.

The military invasion of a neighbour by a rapacious psychopathic dictator has not endeared Mr. Putin to the privileged within his own society, let alone the congregate masses. Russian officials themselves dare not express misgivings or to denounce a decision to take Russia to war against its vulnerable neighbour, but condemnation comes from younger Russians, resulting in nationwide protests and mass arrests. 

On the streets of Moscow, protesters made their voices heard against the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Sunday. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)

Social media has been flooded with posts by Russians condemning their own leadership for aggression against Ukraine. Posts such as that of Liza Peskova, the cosmopolitan 24-year-old daughter of Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, when she posted a black square, captioning it with "No to war!" on her Instagram account. The post was deleted soon afterward.

Prior to her post, the daughter of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich insisted on a social media post the war was Putin's and his alone, the Russian people had no part in it. "The biggest and most successful lie of Kremlin's propaganda is that most Russians stand with Putin", the post by 26-year-old Sofia Abramovich based in London, clarified.

Police officers detain a demonstrator in central Saint Petersburg on Sunday. Outside the upmarket Gostiny Dvor downtown department store, hundreds stood together, linking arms and chanting. (Sergei Mikhailichenko/AFP via Getty Images)

Russian tennis player, 24-year-old Andrey Rublev, wrote "No war please" after his semi-final win in Dubai. Most protesters at the antiwar rallies in Russia hard on the first day of invasion were young, speaking of their disbelief and shame that their president has brought to Russia. 1,700 protesters were detained at rallies taking place in dozens of cities across Russia. Some will continue to be held, charged with 'resisting arrest'.

 "Adolf Putin" was scrawled across buildings and underpasses in St.Petersburg. "No to War" graffiti was sprayed on walls in Moscow, including on the front door of Russia's parliament. "Putin is a Hitler with a nuclear bomb", Leonid Volkov, an ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, stated. Such rallies "are not allowed by law", Dmitry Peskov, said in defence of the mass arrests.

An open letter condemning the war was produced by Russian foreign policy journalists. Their protest gained them the advantage of being removed from the pool that accompanies Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on his travels abroad when state media is given access to events they witness enabling them to write stories published in Russian news outlets.

Police officers detain a man in Moscow during an anti-war protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Sunday. A monitoring group says over 2,000 were detained at protests in 48 cities across Russia that day. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)