MINISTER SPEED DIAL — It used to be in vogue to speculate about CHRYSTIA FREELAND's future. For a long time, she was the consensus pick as JUSTIN TRUDEAU's heir apparent. The top job at NATO was the center of gossip for a stretch. The fun was in the buffet of possibilities for a hyperconnected former journalist with a best-in-class rolodex. Whisperers, though fewer these days, have shifted to the global stage. It's no wonder. Freeland has cultivated a network of influencers over 30 years and career stops in Kyiv, Moscow, London and New York. — On the record: Your Playbook host heard plenty of plaudits while reporting on Freeland's effort to push Western allies to seize Russian central bank assets and transfer them to Ukraine. The minister's network offered insight into how she moves through the world — and works to cajole powerful counterparts into sticking with Ukraine no matter what. She scored a victory early in the war by persuading allies to freeze assets and enact harsh banking sanctions. Now, as she talks and texts with Ukrainians in their mother tongue and occasionally snaps at Russians in theirs, Freeland is pressing reluctant Europeans to go further. KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said Freeland "has that spark that opens up what could otherwise be more procedural. It becomes substantive," Georgieva told Playbook. "She's one of the people who is able to touch on untouchable themes." ELISABETH SVANTESSON, Sweden's finance minister, told us about a G20 meeting where Freeland turned to Russians to condemn Putin and his regime. “She was very upfront and direct. I really enjoyed that." — The texting tree: Freeland's friends laud her knack for ignoring protocol and instead picking up the phone. Asked about her go-to sources on Ukraine, Freeland drops names — but couches it in coincidence. "It's the accident of how my life has developed that I know all those people," she said in an interview. Freeland met MARIO DRAGHI while they both lived in New York City. He worked at Goldman Sachs before going on to become Italian PM and European central banker. She had just written a book about Russian oligarchs, with a day job at the Financial Times. BILL BURNS, now CIA director, read the same book. They've known each other "for a long time." In 1986, Freeland attended the same Harvard seminar on Russia as GEORGE KENT, the U.S. ambassador to Estonia and former second-in-command at the American mission in Kyiv. She goes back years with VICTORIA NULAND, another American diplomat and former NATO ambassador. On a Davos panel meant to bolster Western solidarity with Ukraine, Freeland traded remarks with the Polish foreign minister, RADEK SIKORSKI, whom she first met in her Kyiv apartment in 1991, and CNN’s FAREED ZAKARIA, whom she met in London decades ago (she thinks they were introduced by Pulitzer-winning historian ANNE APPLEBAUM). — Academics: Freeland also checks in with leading thinkers on Ukraine-Russia relations. → LARRY SUMMERS, BOB ZOELLICK and PHILIP ZELIKOW: This trio is fueling Freeland's push to convince allies to confiscate Russian central bank assets. Summers, a mentor, is a former U.S. Treasury secretary. Zoellick once headed up the World Bank. Zelikow, a longtime diplomat, ran the 9/11 Commission. → Harvard prof SERHII PLOKHY: They met at Harvard in 1987. Plokhy once rented part of the duplex owned by Freeland's mother. They reconnected in Davos this year. → University of Toronto prof LUCAN WAY: They met as undergrads in Harvard's smoking room. A Freeland ex-boyfriend once called them the "Nerdy Twins" because of their shared interest in Ukraine. Way later worked with Freeland's mom in Kyiv. → Stanford prof MIKE MCFAUL: They met in Moscow when Freeland worked for the Financial Times and McFaul toiled at the Moscow Carnegie Center. He was later the top American envoy in Moscow. → Yale prof TIMOTHY SNYDER: "I try to talk to him pretty often. He's wonderful." — Dinner party diplomacy: Freeland likes to gather influencers in her Toronto home. Often, she cooks dinner herself. → Way is a repeat attendee. He remembers an evening where Applebaum was the guest of honor. They ate borscht and beef bourguignon. Few in Freeland's orbit describe her as techno-savvy, but Freeland's staff talks up her responsiveness via text and email. The dinners reveal another side: "I've actually never seen her look at her phone," Way says. → PAUL GROD, the head of the Ukrainian World Congress, met Freeland when he ran the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. He once attended a backyard BBQ at the minister's home with a prominent Ukrainian delegation. MARK CARNEY was milling about. Grod asked in advance what he could bring. Freeland's response: "Can you pick up a case of beer?" He did. "There I was with BRIAN CLOW of the PMO, slugging beers and handing them out to the chairman of Fairfax." That would be investor PREM WATSA. — Stuck in the middle with U: As Europeans and Americans frustrate each other over the fraught proposal to confiscate frozen Russian funds, Freeland appears caught in the middle. She acknowledges Europe needs to take the lead, since the continent "is on the front lines." But in almost the next sentence, she describes the urgency of war. “A part of me sort of thinks, wow, if the Ukrainian finance minister or the prime minister were listening to me, would they be saying, ‘Chrystia! Come on! Don’t be so nice and Canadian. We have to get this done. Our people are dying.’” | 
