Ukrainian military likely to get Canadian rifles by fall
Freeland expected to sign off on export
A deal that will put Canadianmade sniper rifles in the hands of Ukraine’s military will likely see the weapons delivered in time for any new outbreak of fighting with Russian-backed forces this fall, according to the Conservative party’s defence critic.
Few details are available about the proposed sale of weapons, as the Canadian government says such information is commercially sensitive. It has declined to name the company selling the guns or indicate how many rifles would be sent to Ukraine. However, Conservative MP James Bezan, who has been in contact with the Canadian company that has the agreement to supply the rifles to Ukraine, confirmed the deal’s likely timeline. He declined to name the firm since the sale still has to be finalized.
Ukrainians have been fighting each other since 2014, with government troops battling separatist rebels in the Donbass region of the country. Russia also annexed the Crimea and has provided support to the separatist forces.
Nicolas Moquin, a spokesman for the Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters, said the Canadian military has been providing sniper and counter-sniper training to Ukraine’s security forces since September 2015. However, Canada is not at this time looking at providing additional training to coincide with the delivery of new weapons, he said.
Canada has been one of the nations most vocal in its condemnation of Russia’s actions in the Donbass. In addition to military training, it has provided Ukraine with non-lethal military equipment and has committed more than $700 million in financial, development, humanitarian and other assistance.
While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland has yet to sign off on the export permit for the rifles, Bezan said he anticipates she will do so as she is a strong supporter of Ukraine.
“If everything goes according to plan I would expect Freeland to sign off sometime this month,” he said. “I think the goal is to have (rifles) in their hands by the time of any fall-winter offensive in Donbass.”
Global Affairs Canada official John Babcock would not say whether Canadian taxpayers are financing the sale, and would not provide any other details about the arms deal. “The government has an obligation to protect confidential commercial information,” he stated in an email.
In December, the House of Commons defence committee recommended the Canadian government provide lethal weapons to Ukraine provided it demonstrates it is working to eliminate corruption at all levels of government.
Senior officials from Ukraine’s ministry of defence had told members of the House of Commons defence committee last year that they would welcome arms from Canada, including anti-tank weapons.
But Peggy Mason, a former disarmament ambassador to the United Nations and a security adviser to the Mulroney government, told the committee that providing lethal weaponry to Ukraine could prompt “escalatory actions” by proRussian separatist groups “because each side feels it must respond to a show of force by the other.” Sending arms into the ongoing conflict is the wrong direction for Canada to take, she argued.
Canada’s past decisions to ship arms into conflict zones have met with mixed results. The government approved the export of Canadian-made rifles to Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, but those weapons have since been turning up on the black market. Earlier this year, Turkish commandos battled terrorists in that country’s mountainous regime, recovering one of the Canadian rifles.
In 2016, the Canadian government came up with a plan to arm Kurdish troops with anti-tank weapons, sniper rifles, mortars and other equipment to battle Islamic terrorists. That scheme was scuttled after Kurdish and Iraqi government forces started fighting each other in the wake of Kurdish plans to separate from Iraq.
The $10-million worth of weapons earmarked for the Kurds and paid for by Canadian taxpayers is still sitting in a Canadian Forces warehouse in Montreal.