Canada Expected To Announce Extension Of Ukraine Training Mission

3/18/19
Canada is set to announce it will extend its 200-member military training mission in Ukraine, Reuters reports, citing a source directly familiar with the matter. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan are scheduled to hold a news conference on March 18. "[The subject of the news conference] is the Ukraine extension," the source said, according to Reuters. No additional trainers are expected to be sent to the country, the source added. A spokeswoman for the defense minister declined to comment. Representatives for Freeland could not immediately be reached. Canada first sent troops to Ukraine in 2015, and they were scheduled to pull out at the end of March. But political and military sources said that, given continuing tensions between Ukraine and Russia, it was necessary for the mission to be extended. In December 2018, Freeland said that Russia's "illegal annexation of Crimea, its direct involvement in the conflict in [eastern Ukraine], and now its illegal actions targeting Ukrainian sailors and vessels...cannot and must not be accepted by the international community."

On March 15, the United States, together with the European Union and Canada, imposed new sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials and businesses in response to the country's "continued aggression in Ukraine." Ukrainian government forces have been fighting against Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since April 2014 in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people -- a quarter of them civilians. Canadian trainers are part of a larger mission that involves the United States, Britain, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden. The Canadian mission is based in western Ukraine, a long distance from the regular clashes between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country.

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Rogue Valley said:

Canada Expected To Announce Extension Of Ukraine Training Mission

Canada Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.



Canadian troops [they do rotate] have been in Ukraine since 2015. One contingent teaches NATO tactics and doctrine at the Yavoriv Combat Training Center in western Ukraine. Another contingent is composed of Canadian military doctors and medics teaching military medicine to Ukraine military doctors at the Dnipro Military Hospital and training UA field medics. Thank you Canada.

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Litwin said:

its time to bring NATO (and NATO friendly , like Finland, Sweden, Georgia ) forces in Ukraine

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