For months after Moscow launched its full invasion a year ago, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resorted to a standard message whenever it was accused of going too slowly, or doing too little, in its efforts to help Ukraine.
Did we ever tell you Canada trained over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers?
That message served as both talking point and deflection. It was bolted onto almost every speech and media response line in Ottawa during those early months, as the world was riveted by the dramatic stand Ukrainian soldiers made outside the capital Kyiv and in Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city.
CBC News has been on the ground covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the start. What do you want to know about their experience there? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca. Our reporters will be taking your questions as the one-year anniversary approaches.
At the time, many world leaders and seasoned military, defence and geopolitical observers were expecting Ukraine’s defence to collapse swiftly in the face of Russia’s vastly superior manpower, firepower and airpower. The experts were subsequently caught off-guard by the determination and professionalism of Ukraine’s military, and by its early victories against a brutal antagonist.
There are many reasons explaining Ukraine’s survival. They start with the palpable rage that has united Ukrainians — a visceral anger that only grows with each new atrocity, each indiscriminate missile attack taking innocent lives.
The Russian Army itself is another reason. With their ill-prepared soldiers, uncoordinated units, snarled logistics and a habit of combining over-confidence with a lack of competence, Russian Army commanders have bungled their war to a degree that has been as astonishing as the Ukrainians’ performance has been inspiring.
A destroyed Russian tank stands across the road from a church in the town of Sviatohirsk, Ukraine on Jan. 6, 2023. (Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press)
But most military commanders will tell you that wars are won and lost on the training grounds — in the mindset instilled in soldiers by that training.
Which is where Canada and its allies came in.
CBC News wanted to know how much of a difference Canada’s much-hyped military training mission made to Ukraine’s ability to survive over the last year. We spoke to both Ukrainian and Canadian soldiers.
For seven years leading up to last year’s invasion, hundreds of Canadian soldiers deployed to western Ukraine to train an already battle-tested army that was holding back Russian-backed proxy forces in the eastern Donbas region.
The trainees were put through advanced courses in just about all aspects of combat, from marksmanship and checking for booby-trapped vehicles to battlefield medical treatment and evacuation.
Canadian Brig.-Gen. Tim Arsenault commanded one of the early rotations of trainers. He vividly remembers the sobering experience of watching the first Ukrainian troops arrive directly from the eastern front at the training centre in Yavoriv, near the Polish border.
“What will stick with me the most is just watching that first battalion come in from the Donbas, and seeing the state of the soldiers, who were very tired,” said Arsenault.
“I think it really hit home at that point in time, how it was affecting Ukrainians … at a very basic, you know, moral level, and the fact that they felt almost violated to have to fight with one neighbour who spoke the same language as many of them.”
Col. Sergeii Maltsev of the Ukrainian National Guard tells CBC News his soldiers were ‘skeptical’ of allied training efforts at first. (Murray Brewster/CBC News)
Arsenault said he encountered “a certain degree of reticence” among the Ukrainians, all of whom had combat experience. Col. Sergeii Maltsev of the Ukrainian National Guard said his soldiers were doubtful at first.
“I think some of our people were skeptical,” Maltsev told CBC News in a recent interview in Kyiv.
“Maybe it was the fear of the changes? Maybe because they didn’t know at the beginning what it will give as a final result.”
In the end, the Canadian training made two key contributions to Ukraine’s defence, said Maltsev, a short, tough, wiry soldier who has been fighting Russians since the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The first was the combat medical training provided in the later stages Operation Unifier, the Canadian name for the training mission.
That training has saved many lives, said Maltsev. His opinion was backed up by Ukrainian soldiers CBC News recently interviewed outside of Bakhmut, the focal point of the Russian winter offensive.
WATCH | Canadian trainers urged Ukrainian soldiers to seize initiative:
Canada’s mission to train Ukrainian soldiers
12 hours ago
Duration 5:34
Canadian soldiers have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops on Western military tactics. Two Canadians involved in that training and a Ukrainian on the front line tell CBC’s David Common how it has helped Ukraine survive this long.
The second critical contribution was the training of sergeants and non-commissioned officers — a mid-level layer of command that made Ukrainian units far more nimble than their opponents.
“Previously, it was [an] old-Soviet type approach,” said Maltsev, referring to a top-down command structure that discourages troops from taking the initiative without orders.
This week, join The National, hosted by the CBC’s chief correspondent, Adrienne Arsenault, in Kyiv. Watch at 9 p.m. ET on CBC News Network, 10 p.m. on CBC-TV, or stream it on CBC Gem and CBC News Explore.
“We improved the role of our sergeants in our military, and with your help, with Canadian help, we developed our sergeant … training programs. And now sergeants are capable to assist effectively, assist the officers and even to command their small units, without any assistance or officers’ assistance. So they can take the lead. They can take the decision directly at the battlefield, without any consultation with higher ranks.”
Lt.-Col. Melanie Lake was one of the last Canadian training commanders to work with the Ukrainians before the onset of major hostilities. She finished her tour in the fall of 2021.
Changing the mindset of the Ukrainians away from the old Soviet approach of waiting for orders was an uphill battle, she said.
Lt.-Col. Melanie Lake says one major challenge for Canadian trainers was to get the Ukrainians to let go of the old Soviet-style command and control approach. (Murray Brewster/CBC News)
“In the old Soviet system, there was very much a culture of punishment,” she said. “So you have to break the risk-aversion that comes from that culture of punishment, the … aversion to delegating authority, empowering subordinates.”
Nothing demonstrated the drawbacks of the Russian military mentality better, she said, than the fate of that 65-kilometre-long convoy that had been barrelling down on Kyiv in early 2022 — before it was stopped dead in its tracks and picked apart by Ukrainian resistance.
“Nobody could make a decision,” said Lake. “You’ve got senior [Russian] generals coming forward, coming way too far forward and getting picked off because they’re the only ones who are empowered to make decisions.
“And then you see the contrast of the small teams of Ukrainians enabled with anti-armour weapons, or picking off a general … execution in small teams that allows them to see initiative.”
Volodymyr, who serves with a Ukrainian National Guard artillery unit near Bakhmut, said early victories in the war convinced Ukrainians that they could prevail. (Murray Brewster/CBC News)
Volodymyr is a lieutenant serving with a Ukrainian National Guard artillery unit near Bakhmut; CBC News is identifying him only by his first name, for his protection. He said it was victories like halting the convoy outside Kyiv that convinced Ukrainians that they could win.
“In the very beginning of this war, there were lots Ukrainian defence specialists saying that there is a big Soviet army fighting against, like, [a] small Soviet army,” he said. “But you see what’s happening.”
Another Canadian training commander, Col. Kris Reeves, now admits that when Moscow launched its full invasion on February 24, 2022, he feared the Ukrainians were going to get bulldozed.
“February 24 — I’ve said this to my wife — to me, that’s my 911 moment,” Reeves told CBC News in Ottawa.
“I had this rock in my stomach, this pit of my gut … thinking everything they had worked for, everything we worked for to help them, is going to be gone.”
It’s also possible Canadian military training will have a deeper legacy in post-war Ukraine.
CBC News spoke to a senior Ukrainian lieutenant in charge of a mortar battery — a young woman in an army still beset by gender stereotypes. Krystyna “Kudriava” (her nom-de-guerre, meaning “curly hair”) said she met Lake in her capacity as the Canadian in charge of the training mission in early 2021 — and was inspired to find a woman commanding soldiers.
Krystyna “Kudriava” said receiving combat instruction from a woman in uniform was inspiring. (Murray Brewster/CBC News)
“Meeting Col. Melanie Lake was a very significant event for me,” she said. “And obviously, after I heard the Canadian commanding officer of Operation Unifier was coming and she was a female, I had the great desire to just communicate with her to share our experiences, to hear her story.
“And to my amazement, she happened to be very open in terms of her personality.”
The two became close. Lake gave Krystyna a commander’s coin and in return she received a bracelet made out of bullets.
When asked whether she believes she’ll return to Ukraine eventually for its Aug. 24 independence day celebrations, Lake doesn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely. I have no doubt. I have no doubt.”
Ukrainian National Guard troops take part in a mock casualty care exercise — part of the battlefield medicine training they received from Canadians. (Murray Brewster/CBC News)
MONTREAL – In a Federal Court ruling that opens with the judge musing that “time is money,” a Montreal business owner has been ordered to pay a hefty fine after he imported a luxury watch without declaring it to customs.
Justice Sébastien Grammond ruled Tuesday that David Segall Blouin must pay a $35,000 fine and $11,400 in Quebec sales tax on a watch he bought two years ago for about $115,000.
In August 2022, Blouin flew to Philadelphia to buy an A. Lange & Söhne watch from Luxury Bazaar, which bills itself as a dealer of pre-owned luxury watches. He returned to Montreal the same day but failed to declare the watch to customs, the judgment says.
Separately, Blouin had the empty watch box shipped to Canada by FedEx. He claimed he planned to pay duties when the package was delivered to him, but agents from the Canada Border Services Agency found that the manifest accompanying the package showed a value of just six dollars.
They issued Blouin a fine of $34,650, or 30 per cent of the watch’s value.
Blouin, who owns a transport and logistics company in Montreal, challenged the fine in Federal Court, claiming the decision was unreasonable and didn’t take into account the particular circumstances of his case. He claimed to have previously imported other, less expensive watches and paid duties when they were delivered to him. He said he planned to do the same thing this time.
But Grammond didn’t buy the story, since Blouin flew back to Montreal carrying this watch, while the package sent by courier was declared to be worth almost nothing. He said a border official had noted that bringing undeclared goods into the country and sending the packaging or invoice by mail is a familiar scheme known to the agency.
“In short, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Blouin intended to declare the watch, or that the whole affair was nothing more than a misunderstanding,” the judge wrote.
Now, on top of the fine and sales tax, Blouin is also on the hook for the government’s legal fees.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
American authorities say a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder is wanted in the U.S. on multiple charges stemming from his alleged involvement in a transnational drug trafficking ring and several murders in Ontario.
Ryan James Wedding is one of 16 defendants named in an indictment filed in California, which details an operation that allegedly moved large shipments of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and California to Canada and other locations in the United States.
U.S. authorities say the 43-year-old Wedding, who was living in Mexico, is considered a fugitive.
Wedding was a snowboarder who competed for Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
The FBI is offering a US$50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and extradition to the U.S.
The indictment also names several other people from Canada who allegedly took part in the criminal operation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – The plaintiffs who successfully sued Canada over discrimination in the child welfare system gave emotional speeches on Thursday urging First Nations chiefs to support a landmark $47.8-billion deal to reform that system.
The deal was struck in July between Canada, the Chiefs of Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the Assembly of First Nations after a nearly two-decade legal fight over the federal government’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that was discriminatory. It tasked Canada with coming to an agreement with First Nations to reform the system, and also with compensating children who were torn from their families and put in foster care.
Chiefs are in Calgary this week for an Assembly of First Nations gathering where they are set to vote on the agreement. So far, dozens of them have raised concerns about how it will work. Some service providers say their funding levels will be significantly cut, which will prevent them from doing their work effectively.
Carolyn Buffalo, a mother from Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alta., was one representative plaintiff in the class-action for Jordan’s Principle families.
Jordan’s Principle is a legal rule named after Jordan River Anderson, a First Nations child born in 1999 with multiple health issues that kept him in hospital from birth. He didn’t leave the hospital until he died at the age of five, and governments couldn’t agree on who should pay for his home-based care.
Buffalo’s son, Noah, has cerebral palsy and requires continuous care. But Ottawa has been making that care difficult for him to access on reserve.
Speaking through tears at the assembly, Buffalo said she thinks chiefs will vote down the deal she and others have worked on for years in an attempt to stop Canada’s discrimination against First Nations children. She said kids will be left without protection if the deal is rejected.
“I didn’t even want to come to this assembly because I knew that politically it was going to be tough,” she said.
“Do I trust the AFN? No. Do I trust the Liberal government? No, but I am a supporter of this legal process. That’s why we agreed to join and be part of it. If I thought for one second that this was going to be harmful to our people, I wouldn’t be part of this … Go ahead, scuttle the agreement. But if the deal is lost, just remember what I said.”
Another representative plaintiff, Ashley Bach, was removed from her community as a child. She urged chiefs to remember that many children in care are watching the assembly, even though the topic is traumatizing for them and some conversations have been hostile.
“This is a once-in-a-childhood agreement, because if we take too long we’re going to lose another generation,” she said.
“If we wait years and years for a perfect agreement, they won’t be kids anymore. They’ll be like me.”
Speaking to chiefs on the first day of the special assembly Wednesday, AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak urged the chiefs to vote for the deal so it is in place before the next federal election.
Woodhouse Nepinak said she’s tried to build bridges with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, but she can’t guarantee a better deal could be reached with him based on that party’s record on Indigenous issues and its promise to cut spending.
The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which helped launched the initial human rights complaint, has been urging chiefs to reject that framing and look more closely at the deal.
Its executive director, Cindy Blackstock, said Thursday morning that orders from the human rights tribunal don’t disappear if this deal is not accepted.
“I’ve lived through the Harper years, and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal survived through the Harper years,” she said, referencing former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.
“Everything is on the table.”
Before the agreement was announced in July, some regional chiefs raised concerns that it had been negotiated in secret. Some child welfare experts have also said the deal doesn’t go far enough to ensure Canada’s discrimination never happens again, and accused the Assembly of First Nations of excluding the Caring Society from the process altogether.
The Squamish Nation said Wednesday its concerns about the deal have been ignored by both Canada and the Assembly of First Nations.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
