With Canada’s help, Ukraine stands up to Russian aggression

Lubomyr Luciuk writes our troops play a key role in training Ukrainian soldiers.

Looking down from the inside of a Ukrainian Armed Forces Mil Mi-8 helicopter I surveyed Ukraine as I have never done — marvelling at measureless tracts of sunflowers and wheat fields nourished by the fertility of its chernozem soil — understanding why this land, known from ancient times as the “breadbasket of Europe,” has again and again been made a ravin by the depredations of rapacious invaders. Since February 2014 the trespassers have been the Russians, whose army seized Crimea then attacked in eastern Ukraine, occupying much of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (provinces). To this day they despoil there and so threaten the peace of Europe.

But the Russians are encountering an increasingly dogged resistance. From the start of their unprovoked invasion, they were impeded by volunteers who rushed forward from all parts of Ukraine. The bravery and sacrifices of what we might well describe as Ukrainian “minutemen” helped blunt and contain Moscow’s imperialistic designs. And, since November 2014, Canada, stalwartly determined to help Ukraine remain sovereign, stable and secure, has been assisting in the enhancement of Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. As part of a Multinational Joint Commission, including the United States and United Kingdom, about 200 Canadian Armed Forces specialists, drawn largely from the Third Canadian Division, have been training Ukrainian troopers at the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre (IPSC). Others are teaching at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence’s Demining Centre in Kamyanets-Podilsky.

The IPSC is found within the Yavorivsky military polyhon, a 40,000-square-kilometre training area, created by the razing of 29 western Ukrainian villages at Stalin’s command. My maternal grandmother’s was one of them.

As of July 1, 2017, the CAF

Joint Task Force-Ukraine had trained some 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Canada has pledged its support until at least March 2019. We may need to stay longer, for Vladimir Putin, the KGB man in the Kremlin and “presidentin-perpetuity,” certainly knows Russia can never be an empire without dominating Ukraine. Restoring an imperial Russian realm remains his fundamental goal, no matter how many of his soldiers’ lives are squandered paying the butcher’s bill.

I was able to visit with our troops at the Demining Centre and the IPSC in a day, the mobility of a Mi-8 and the courteousness of Lt.-Gen. Paul Wynnyk and his staff, facilitating this sally. I learned more during one day than I do in most weeks. It was agreed that I could write as I please, prohibited only from identifying individual soldiers, a reasonable condition. I also travelled at my expense. It was clear that if I went further, up to the front lines in eastern Ukraine, I would be doing so privately and at my own risk. Before I departed, however, my aim was to find out whether this Canadian mission was more than just a paternalistic, one-way relationship.

I got my answer at the Demining Centre. By chance I overheard a conversation between the general and a Canadian officer who, when asked if he had learned from Ukraine’s sappers, responded with an emphatic “Absolutely!” and went on to describe how the “lessons learned” by Ukrainians were being incorporated into the advanced training offered to military students. Canadian, British and American soldiers’ lives will be saved in future because Ukrainian troops are bringing hard-won intelligence, paid for with their flesh and blood on the battlefield, and sharing it with their western friends.

Time and again, I received positive responses from Canadian soldiers when I asked if they were benefiting from this deployment. Most said they would like to stay longer, to learn even more. As for the Ukrainians they have welcomed our troops as comradesin-arms and, to a soldier, stressed how grateful they are to Canada for standing with them as they fight what has become Ukraine’s war of independence. The Ukrainians believe they will win it. From what I saw of their professionalism and pluck, I think they’re right. Remember what Putin seems to have forgotten — this is not the first time in their history that Ukrainians have fended off a foe. They remain unbowed.