Canada resumes training courses for Ukrainian military

Alexander Sychev

This time, the Canadian specialists will not go to Ukraine, where they left in March, so as not to endanger themselves, but to the UK.

Operation Unifier is a very remarkable project of the West, the purpose of which was to transfer the armed forces of Ukraine to NATO weapons and standards. In addition to Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Poland, Lithuania, Denmark took the most active part in it, and just before the closing of the courses, a small Swedish unit joined them.

Canadians began their part of the operation back in January 2014 with the delivery of a batch of non-lethal military equipment. Then there were weapons, various agreements on joint exercises, cooperation, and, in particular, on the deployment of a Canadian task force in Ukraine consisting of almost 200 military personnel and the creation of an International Center for Security and Peacekeeping in Starychi. It was opened in the spring of 2014, and in the autumn they even held a parade of the Joint Multinational Training Group.

In September 2020, the personnel of the command of the Canadian Special Operations Forces joined the “unifying” efforts, who began to train the Ukrainian military in matters of reconnaissance and sabotage, and at the same time engaged in reconnaissance activities against Russia.

Until the end of January 2022, Canadian specialists conducted 726 training courses, through which more than 33,000 Ukrainian servicemen, including almost 2,000 soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine, passed. These fighters are of particular interest. Among them were fighters from the Azov battalion, who were enrolled in courses as fighters of the National Guard.