A Labrador MHA who worked 14 years as an environmental scientist in the former Soviet Union is watching the events in Ukraine with great concern.

Perry Trimper, the independent member for Lake Melville worked for Jacques Whitford, which had an office in Moscow. He says after years of a government led by the largely absentee Boris Yeltsin, his company noticed an immediate change in 2000 when Vladimir Putin took over.

He says there was a strong shift back to a centrist government, the impacts of which his company felt immediately, creating seven “super governors” over 89 republics and oblasts. Trimper likens it to adding another layer of governance over the country, as if there were a premier added over all of Atlantic Canada.

Trimper developed a perspective on Putin and his government during his time there, and believes what’s happening now is chilling.

Putin’s “shrewd KGB background,” his training and the position he’s in, creates a dangerous situation says Trimper.