“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell
The Canadian government recently expanded Operation Unifier. The military training mission has been an important element in an escalatory dynamic that needs to be reversed to end the horrors in Ukraine.
Alongside a new donation of AIM-9 missiles and ammunition, last week defence minister Anita Anand announced that Canada would send five more medical trainers to Poland. They will join seven others dispatched there last month to assist with medical skills training for the Ukrainian Forces. They will join other Canadian troops in Poland training Ukrainians to use Leopard tanks. Three weeks ago, Canada began training Ukrainian officers in Latvia where Canada has led a NATO mission for six years. In August Operation Unifier was restarted in the UK after the training mission was paused just prior to Russia’s illegal February 2022 invasion. In total over 300 Canadian Forces personnel are currently deployed in Europe as part of Unifier.
Between April 2015 and February 2022, 200 Canadian troops — rotated every six months — trained 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers as part of Unifier. Canadian taxpayers spent $890 million on a training mission that began after Ukraine’s military largely collapsed amidst the violence unleashed by the Canadian-backed ouster of elected President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Alongside US and UK troops, Canadian soldiers worked with Ukrainian soldiers on tactics, command structures, explosive-device disposal, sniper training, etc. In 2019 former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dubbed former Canadian defence minister Jason Kenney “the godfather of the modern Ukrainian army” due to his role in instigating Unifier.
“The objective was the modernization of their forces with the aim of one day becoming a member of NATO”, explained former Unifier commander, Jeffrey Toope, to Le Journal de Montréal recently. In January 2022 La Presse reported that “Canadian training allows Ukrainian forces to practice and do joint maneuvers with NATO.” (more...)
Canada’s only answer in Ukraine: More weapons, more war
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