Putin responds to Canada’s war games on his doorstep
Military exercise sends strong signal to Moscow, defence minister says
Romania is a sovereign, free nation. It isn’t a Russian satellite state. It is a member of the NATO alliance, and they’ve invited us to participate.
Would Canadians have reckoned 16 months ago infantrymen from a base in the Ottawa Valley would be climbing a hill on the edge of the Transylvanian Alps to attack a Romanian position in war games aimed at deterring Russian aggression?
But there they were, a platoon from The Royal Canadian Regiment in Petawawa, dressed in war paint and combat camouflage exchanging fire with a Romanian heavy machine-gun mounted on a Soviet-era armoured personnel carrier as U.S. army Black Hawk helicopters patrolled nearby.
The Canadian Army has maintained a modest but persistent presence in eastern Europe since soon after Russian forces invaded Crimea last March, then sent spies, soldiers, weapons and tanks to help feeble separatists forces seize parts of eastern Ukraine.
The Royals have had slightly more than 200 soldiers in eastern Europe since last July and have conducted joint exercises in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. This month they decamped from Glebokie, Poland, to western Romania, a 1,721-kilometre trek that took three days. There, they established a tent camp named after Sgt. Andrew Doiron, who was killed in a friendly fire incident in Iraq in March.
While what Canadian Joint Operations Command is calling Exercise Sarmis has not attracted much attention in the West, it has been such big news in Romania that President Klaus Iohannis was due to drop by to express his appreciation.
Russia is not amused. On a weekend when Reuters photographed a large column of Russian army vehicles cutting across farmers’ fields as they headed toward eastern Ukraine with multiple rocket-launcher systems, PCN-TV ran raw video of a U.S. army convoy trundling along Romanian roads.
The copy that accompanied the video said: “Large manoeuvres of the U.S. Army and NATO in Romania. Direct target: Russia! Note the American flags alongside Romanian flags on the tanks of the Romanian Army. Decidedly Atlanticist politicians of Bucharest, from German-Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to social democratic Prime Minister Ponta, are all in political prostitution to Americans.”
Defence Minister Jason Kenney criticized the Russian reaction in a telephone interview from Ottawa.
“Romania is a sovereign, free nation. It isn’t a Russian satellite state. It is a member of the NATO alliance, and they’ve invited us to participate,” he said.
Russia’s complaints about the Romanian exercise were overthe-top because the Canadian infantry and the 1,000 or so allied troops training with them are about 500 kilometres from the nearest Russian territory — if, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, you consider Crimea to be part of Russia — and more than 700 km away if you do not.
The Canadians do not have any heavy weapons. When there is a call for artillery, the Royals pretend they have fired. Meanwhile, the Russians have moved artillery and tanks, as well as rockets and anti-aircraft guns, into eastern Ukraine.
“The best way to prevent a miscalculation on the part of Vladimir Putin is through a posture of strength and deterrence,” Kenney said.
“Vladimir Putin responds very aggressively to what he thinks is weakness or uncertainty. That is why these kinds of operations are important, not just for sending political and diplomatic signals, but also military. The signal that we are collectively sending to Moscow is that it should not even think about replaying policy of aggression, de facto invasions and destabilization that we have seen in Ukraine, Moldova and elsewhere.”
The deployment to Romania has also helped logistics experts understand how to operate far from home, said Canada’s task force commander, Maj. Mark Lee.
Working with up to a dozen NATO countries has also provided “collective training benefits” that simply cannot be replicated at home, said Lee, who served two tours in Afghanistan. “Everyone has been learning some different things.”
His sergeant major, Raymond Green, who has been deployed to Kandahar three times, said although many Afghan vets had left the forces since Canada ended combat operations there in 2011, “those of us who wanted to stay knew that another challenging assignment will always come down the road.”
Both soldiers agreed the exercises in Europe differed from their Afghan experiences in that they were practising conventional warfare, not confronting an insurgency.
“This place is beautiful, and the Romanians have been more than hospitable,” Green said. “I have nothing but good to say about the Romanians and Poles. It is good to soldier with them,”
Exercise Sarmis, which is part of Operation Reassurance, ends next week when the Canadians take part in a company-level offensive operation that will involve Romanian, U.S. and British forces.
The Royals are to return to Canada in July. They will be replaced in eastern Europe by troops from the Quebec-based Royal 22nd Regiment, the Van Doos.
Canada’s commitment of a company of ground troops runs until at least the end of next March, Kenney said.