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OTTAWA — Canada’s top diplomat in Ukraine is worried the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has resulted in a new Cold War between Russia and the West, could drag on for years or even decades.

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And while advances have been made in stamping out corruption in the police and government, Ambassador Roman Waschuk says democracy in Ukraine is still a “work in progress.”

“I think it’s heading in the right direction, but I think not fast enough and direct enough for many of the stakeholders,” Waschuk said in an exclusive interview last week. “Everybody needs to be realistic. We need to be supportive. We need to be demanding.”

It’s been nearly two years since a popular uprising ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power, and sparked a chain of events that have pitted Canada and its allies against a newly assertive and aggressive Kremlin.

Russia continues to hold a chunk of Ukrainian territory, which it annexed soon after Yanukovych was sent running to Moscow. And the civil war between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists continues to smolder. The UN says more than 9,000 people have been killed since April 2014.