OTTAWA – With eastern Ukraine experiencing the worst fighting in two years between government troops and Russian-backed separatist rebels, Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to maintain Canada’s military presence in Ukraine and extend its support by providing Ukrainian forces with long-requested weapons.
Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko said in an interview that he’s hoping for a “quick decision” on Operation UNIFIER through which 200 members of the Canadian Armed Forces have provided training in such areas as combat support, weapons and marksmanship, and explosive threat recognition to more than 2,600 Ukrainian soldiers in western Ukraine since the summer of 2015. But the mission is scheduled to end on March 31, and Ukraine’s envoy to Ottawa believes the timing of an announcement on UNIFIER’s future is crucial as hostilities escalate around the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.
“One of the reasons for starting this program was to send a very strong message to Putin and Russia that Canada is serious about supporting Ukraine,” said Mr. Shevchenko, a former member of Ukraine’s Parliament.
Last week, Canadian National Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan told reporters he was examining options in terms of how Canada could improve its support for Ukraine and make whatever changes are necessary.
“But one thing is for sure,” he said, “Canada remains committed to Ukraine…[and] the action that Russia has taken is completely unacceptable.”
But Minister Sajjan said the Canadian government would make an announcement regarding military support to Ukraine “at the appropriate time.”
Last week, Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the Defense Staff who heads the Canadian Forces, appointed Jill Sinclair, a former assistant deputy minister of the Department of National Defense, as Canada’s representative to the Ukrainian Defense Reform Advisory Board, which includes military experts from three other NATO countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Lithuania.
But Mr. Shevchenko wants a lot more Canadian involvement in Ukraine, and seeks it sooner than later.
“There are so many eyes on Canada that we expect Canada to be a strong leader and provide strong support,” the 40-year-old ambassador said. “We need weapons to stop Russia.”
Ukraine has asked for them since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and began supporting separatist forces in Ukraine’s Donbas region. But Canada has provided only non-lethal military supplies, such as boots, coats, pants and gloves.
Meanwhile, heavy artillery and rockets bombarded the government-held town of Avdiyivka, north of Donetsk, leaving at least 35 people dead last week.
Ambassador Shevchenko told The Ukrainian Weekly that Russian-backed rebels have not pulled their heavy weaponry back from the demarcation line as agreed to under the Minsk II agreement. He said that by providing Ukraine with weapons, Canada could help send a “strong signal” of deterrence to Russia.
Ukraine’s senior diplomat in Canada warned that the situation in Avdiyivka has become a humanitarian crisis.
With a population of about 20,000 people, the town has been left without water, electricity and heat as temperatures have plummeted to below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
“It’s become more complicated,” explained Mr. Shevchenko, “as Russians keep firing at roads, which connect Avdiyivka that makes it very difficult for people to leave the town.”
He said that Ukraine has submitted as many as 200 formal requests to Russia calling for an immediate end to the shelling, but that there has been “no strong sign that they have heard us.”
Ambassador Shevchenko believes the renewed and deadly fighting is also meant to be provocative.
“It definitely looks like Russia is testing the West and the new U.S. administration,” he said. “There was a clear sign of escalation after the first phone contact [on January 28] between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump – but I’m not saying Donald Trump encouraged Putin to escalate hostilities.”
U.S. Sen. John McCain echoed that belief in a letter he sent President Trump last week.
“That this surge of attacks began the day after he talked with you by phone is a clear indication that Vladimir Putin is moving quickly to test you as a commander-in-chief. America’s response will have lasting consequences,” wrote the Republican senator from Arizona. “Vladimir Putin’s violent campaign to destabilize and dismember the sovereign nation of Ukraine will not stop unless and until he meets a strong and determined response.”
Nikki Haley, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on February 2, in her maiden speech to the Security Council, that “the dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions.” President Trump phoned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko two days later to discuss the worsening crisis and reportedly committed the U.S. to working with Ukraine and Russia to help restore peace in the region.
But the U.S. president has not, like Prime Minister Trudeau, openly condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine – and more of that frank talk is needed from Canada, according to Ambassador Shevchenko.
“Words and actions matter, which is why we expect Canada and its Western partners to make decisions and make them quickly, and speak them very loudly and clearly,” he said.
And to listen, which has led to a direct benefit for Canada from Operation UNIFIER, according to the ambassador.
He explained that when he accompanied Prime Minister Trudeau on a visit last July to the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in Yavoriv in western Ukraine (Europe’s largest military training base, equipped to NATO standards), the Canadian delegation heard from some of the 150 Canadian soldiers stationed there about some of the “lessons learned” from their Ukrainian counterparts. (The remaining 50 Canadian soldiers are based at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Demining Center in Kamianets-Podilsky.)
“The Canadians heard about trench warfare, which up until then they might have only read about in books or saw in movies in the context of World War II, but which is an everyday routine in the east of our country,” Ambassador Shevchenko said. “We have this very valuable experience dealing with the second-strongest military on the planet, and we pay a very high price for this experience.”
So will the West, if it doesn’t recognize that Russia has declared war on the free world, the ambassador warned.
“We see Russia trying to build its military power and thinking about ways to challenge the West as it has done in Syria,” and, as he noted, by Russia inserting itself in last year’s U.S. presidential election campaign. In a report released last month, American intelligence officials concluded that President Putin personally approved cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and boost Mr. Trump’s.
“It’s not just about helping Ukraine, and we’re thankful to Canada for providing that,” said Mr. Shevchenko. “But we have to make sure we really put Russia back on the right track. All of us should understand that Russia, under Putin, poses an existential threat to peace on the planet, and Russia is a country that displays very terrible and arrogant behavior that does not respect international law and borders.”
“The West has to find ways to deal with Russia, and we have this costly experience dealing with the Russians, and can share that knowledge – not only on how they wage conventional war but how they’re using information technologies to undermine legitimate Western governments,” he added.
Ukraine’s membership in NATO would help provide greater security from Russia’s ongoing threat to Ukrainian sovereignty, said the ambassador, who believes his country’s inclusion to be inevitable.
Mr. Shevchenko expects Ukrainians will vote in favor of the country entering that strategic alliance in a referendum President Poroshenko promised last week to hold. According to the ambassador, public polling in Ukraine four years ago revealed support for NATO membership was under 20 percent and has since climbed to over 50 percent.
And in terms of the Ukraine-Canada dynamic, having Ukrainian Canadian Member of Parliament Chrystia Freeland as Canada’s foreign affairs minister will significantly bolster the bilateral relationship, according to Mr. Shevchenko.
“With Minister Freeland, Canada’s voice will be even louder – not just because of her Ukrainian background, but because of her personality and her values as a strong advocate for democracy, international law, free trade and open government,” said the ambassador, who was born near Kolomyia in western Ukraine and has known Ms. Freeland since the two were journalists working in Ukraine in the mid-1990s.
“She has a very rare and very special combination of a really great intellect and wonderful communication skills of empathy and compassion, and curiosity that allows her to listen to people. She really knows how to boil down issues to the basics no matter what she talks about,” Ambassador Shevchenko said. “And let’s mention her very impressive expertise with our part of the world and the way Putin and his people think. She really knows the challenges our region faces.”