You're reading: Canada’s premier blames ‘Russian provocateurs’ for escalation

Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper has said the events that unfolded over the weekend in Ukraine are the work of "Russian provocateurs" orchestrated by the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Canadian media reported.

While Russia denied over the weekend that it is behind the violence,
Harper charged Monday that the events are “strictly the work of Russian
provocateurs sent by the Putin regime.”

The situation in Ukraine “is getting worse” and Canada will take further action, he said.

“There are very clear and disconcerting parallels between the
developments in eastern Ukraine and those that took place before Russia
moved to annex Crimea,” said Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John
Baird, who also attended the meeting.

Harper said Baird would travel to Eastern Europe (Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Poland, Latvia and Estonia) for “high-level consultations on
what further steps we can all take.”

“You can certainly be sure that Canada will take additional measures.
We’ve already imposed a number of sanctions, and we will clearly be
taking further action,” Harper said.

According to the premier, seizure of the administrative buildings and
police units in the eastern Ukraine “represents a significant threat to
the peace and stability of the world, and it’s time we all recognized
the depth and the seriousness of that threat.”

Harper said that the world has never faced such danger since the end of Cold War.

“We also know from history that anybody who makes it their historical
mission to turn the clock back, as Mr. Putin has determined to do, that
those kinds of missions always fail in the end,” he said.