Ukraine suffers as Liberals fib

Canada promised almost a year ago to provide Ukraine with a $400-million air defence system, but the donation has not yet been delivered. The Trudeau government owes the public an explanation, especially given that Russia recently pummelled Ukrainians with one of the largest missile strikes seen amid any modern war.

When the Liberal government first pledged to donate the air defence system last January, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Ukrainian cities had been plunged into darkness amid missile strikes on the country’s electrical infrastructure, so protecting Ukraine’s skies was an easy political and humanitarian win.

Naturally, the Liberals have featured this donation in their media lines and press scrums throughout 2023.

However, as Canada did not actually own the defence system and planned on purchasing it from the United States on Kyiv’s behalf, no clear timeline was given on when it would be delivered. Many assumed that the system was handed over by mid-2023, given that, in January that year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters that, “We’ve sent a huge slew of different types of weapons, including an air-defence system,” and then, last April, then-defence minister Anita Anand told CBC News that the system was already “en route” to Ukraine.

But it turns out that neither Trudeau nor Anand were exactly telling the truth.

A recent story published in the Ottawa Citizen revealed that the air defence system has not yet been delivered, despite having been purchased. The Department of National Defence did not provide the newspaper with an estimate of when the system would arrive and stated that delivery plans are still “under development.”

Given that several of Ukraine’s allies, including Lithuania, Spain and the United States, have already managed to donate air defence systems in a timely manner, our failure to do the same should be a national scandal. If our procurement processes are so broken that we cannot follow through on our global defence commitments, how can we expect to be respected on the global stage?

In a better world, the federal government would have publicly acknowledged this problem and helped Canadians understand the need for military modernization. This would have benefited not only Canada, but Ukraine as well, as it would have bolstered the political will to provide additional, more immediate aid in light of our dysfunction.

But the Liberals instead seem intent on sweeping potential scandals under the rug — and, in this respect, there are unsettling parallels with last year’s scandal regarding Canada’s tank deliveries to Kyiv.

When the federal government announced last January that it was sending only four Leopard 2 tanks to help defend Ukraine, some wondered why more weren’t being given. Shortly afterward, media reports revealed that, due to over a decade of neglect, the majority of Canada’s tank fleet is actually broken and inoperable. Of course, the Liberals did not acknowledge this fact amid their self-aggrandizing communications.

One can also draw parallels to the Ukrainian embassy scandal of 2022.

In that incident, Trudeau travelled to Kyiv to announce the reopening of the Canadian embassy (a move which won him many positive headlines), only for it to be revealed months later that the embassy was still closed (Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine, Larisa Galadza, claimed that she needed to work off-site due to specious “security concerns”).

It would be great if the Liberals stopped consistently misrepresenting the scope and quality of their diplomatic, military and financial support for Ukraine. Their behaviour currently resembles that of social media influencers who film themselves giving cups of coffee to the homeless for likes and clout — but we need less theatre and more actual support.

The costs of our hollow foreign policy were laid bare last week, when Russia pummelled Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles over the holidays.

On Dec. 29, Russia launched roughly 110 missiles and 48 drones at major Ukrainian cities, predominantly Odesa and Kyiv. It was the biggest air attack against the country since the beginning of the war, and, while Ukraine’s air defences managed to shoot down 87 of the missiles and 27 of the drones, 31 civilians were killed and another 160 were wounded.

A few days later, on New Year’s Eve, the Russians attacked again with another 90 drones, of which 87 were shot down. Then, on the morning of Jan. 2, Russia sent a further 99 missiles and 35 drones. Seventy-two of those missiles, along with all of the drones, were shot down, but, even so, at least five people died and another 130 were injured.

As Russia has ramped up its military production and has been supplied with missiles from North Korea (and soon, Iran), these waves of attacks are unlikely to subside any time soon. It is therefore imperative that Ukraine’s air defences be bolstered to the greatest extent possible so that they can continue to repel roughly 70 to 90 per cent of the missiles and drones sent into the country.

Without these defences, countless people will die. This may seem abstract to some, but the costs are real.

I have spent over a year in Odesa and now split my time between that city and Toronto. When I am in Ukraine, my friends and I feel safe only because we trust that the drones and missiles sent our way will, for the most part, be shot down by western-provided defences. The West keeps us safe.

I do not want my Ukrainian friends and partner to die. I do not want the charming cities of this country, which strive simply to exist free of foreign domination, to be reduced to rubble. They are filled to the brim with life and history and must not burn — so it is infuriating that our government claims to protect these skies while failing to actually do so.

HOW CAN WE EXPECT TO BE RESPECTED ON THE GLOBAL STAGE?