Canada’s Freeland says Russian technocrats also responsible for ‘war crimes

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, July 15 (Reuters) – Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday told Russian officials at a meeting of G20 finance officials that she held them personally responsible for “war crimes” committed during Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Western official told Reuters.

Freeland directly addressed the Russian delegation taking part in the meeting of the Group of 20 major economies, telling them: “It is not only generals who commit war crimes, it is the economic technocrats who allow the war to happen and to continue,” the official said.

Freeland, whose maternal grandparents were born in Ukraine, told the opening G20 session that the war was the “single biggest threat to the global economy right now,” the official said.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jacqueline Wong

Photo – File photo of Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. EPA/BULLIT MARQUEZ / POOL