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Two security stories from 9 August 2023
Summary
A Ukrainian arrest over an alleged plot against the president, and Canadian sanctions on Belarus, framed the political news around that date.
What did the political news look like on 9 August 2023? Two developments, one from Ukraine and one from Canada, pointed to the security pressures around the region.
Two days earlier, on 7 August 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine said it had arrested a Ukrainian citizen on suspicion of assisting Russian intelligence. The service linked him to a plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which he was suspected of helping to organise.
On 9 August 2023 itself, Global Affairs Canada announced new sanctions against Belarus. The announcement fell on the third anniversary of the 2020 Belarusian presidential election.
The two items came from different capitals and concerned different actors, but both showed governments using security services and sanctions as tools of political pressure in Ukraine's neighbourhood.
