By restarting Operation UNIFIER Canada is ramping up its war with Russia. The military training mission had been Ottawa’s principal contribution to a seven-year-old proxy war, which appears likely to continue for years.
Last week Defence Minister Anita Anand announced that 225 Canadian troops would be dispatched to England to train Ukrainians. They will offer a wide range of assistance, including training on Canadian weaponry and intelligence.
Restarting UNIFIER, which was paused just before Russia’s illegal February 24 invasion, raises a number of moral questions about strengthening the far right, turning civilians into cannon fodder and, most significantly, whether UNIFIER will extend and expand the war. The Canadian government claims its objective is to defend Ukrainian sovereignty, which has a ring of truth to it. But UNIFIER was at the centre of Canada’s proxy war with Russia.
As they fought Russian-backed forces in the east, Canadian troops trained 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers over seven years. When UNIFIER was announced in April 2015 the Russian Embassy in Ottawa released a statement noting, “it is neither appropriate, nor helpful to assist the military buildup playing into the hands of ‘party of war in Kiev’”, which was Moscow’s pejorative description for the government of Petro Poroshenko who took office after the Canadian-backed ouster of Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. “It would be much more reasonable to concentrate on diplomacy and encourage authorities in Kiev to finally enter into a genuine political dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk Republics as it was agreed upon in ‘Minsk-2’ accords in February.” (more...)
How many Ukrainians will die before Ottawa seeks peace?
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