As a student of Russian history and literature and Slavonic studies at Harvard and Oxford and later as journalist for the Financial Times her crucible was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The photos that Lukatsky had given her were denounced as “artfully selected materials slandering our Soviet Ukraine,” he said. Freeland was the right person “to reshape our foreign policy” in a cabinet that otherwise lacked depth on foreign policy, because “she is knowledgeable and sophisticated,” Paul Grod of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said. “If anyone comes up with a unique approach to deter Russia, Chrystia is the person for the job,” he said. Freeland’s improbable path from northwestern Alberta to the heady days in eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact fell apart and now at the centre of Canada’s foreign policy establishment was only the beginning, Lukatsky said.

Source: National Post June 05, 2017 22:32 UTC