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So the prospect of higher oil prices, given Saudi’s success in protecting supply chains, and Iran’s impending flood of oil, does not look very jolly for Alberta, Canadian economic growth or the Canadian dollar.

Then there’s the Czar in Russia. Recently, Vladimir Putin’s principal and popular critic was boldly assassinated, and Putin laid to rest any notions that a rational and fair solution in Ukraine could be reached when he said in a televised interview he would have used nuclear weapons to regain Crimea if needed.

A British newspaper reported last week: “The President [Putin] said: `We were ready to do it’” when asked if he would have used nuclear weapons to take back Crimea. ‘I talked with colleagues and told them that this [Crimea] is our historic territory.’

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Not surprisingly, there are now reports that he plans to locate nuclear weapons in Crimea to insure Russia’s expropriation and scare everybody in the neighborhood.

This makes Ukraine, also a failed state, ground zero when it comes to the future well-being of all neighborhoods. Putin’s comments are designed to, and should, put to rest any notion that the U.S. or anyone should arm Ukrainians to fight Russians on their soil. That would be equivalent to handing out knives in a gunfight and escalating the issue.