Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, from what I understand, the Wagner Group is still present under new leadership, and other groups are also there. They're still part of it, but it's still not affecting the war any differently or less than it has so far.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, visas seem to continue to be a critical issue here. Currently, the visa regime is still done outside of Ukraine—in London and in Poland at this time—until we can return a lot of the computer infrastructure required for secure information. That is still an issue here in Ukraine, in the embassy in Kyiv.

Foreign Affairs committee  That is correct. It's just taking some time to return the servers required to be able do that, which—

Foreign Affairs committee  From what I understand, it could be a few days to a couple of weeks. We're not talking months. It's in a shorter term that we should be able to increase that service here within Kyiv itself.

Foreign Affairs committee  My duty of care applies to all the Canadian-based staff—currently, I have a hard cap of 25—and also to all LES, locally engaged staff, while they're at work. The current situation is still the same. However, we do share information very openly. I have monthly meetings with them, where we talk about a lot of these issues and questions very regularly.

Foreign Affairs committee  What I understand is that on November 8, there will be a European Commission report that will speak to the seven points in terms of the European integration and some of the reforms. In my conversations with the European ambassador, all sense is that it's going well. They're feeling that there is progress and that it will likely be continued progress when working with Ukraine.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would say to continue to support the fight and the war with supplies for the military and with military training. I think it's a good opportunity now to consider investing in Ukraine as well, particularly in certain areas that might align very well with Canadian sectors, such as energy, critical infrastructure or nuclear power, for example.

Foreign Affairs committee  Overall, I think there's agreement that this war is a global war and it is about the principles that we need to be able to maintain. We're starting to see that divide between the rules-based world and the non-rules-based world or others—the BRICS, as they call them. I think that the rule-based order is really critical.

Foreign Affairs committee  I agree that this is probably the more dangerous part of the war, the disinformation and the malinformation that's out there and that's being created. It is taking a partial truth and making it unclear so that the public no longer knows whether it's true or false. There are a couple of examples there.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, we are seeing that the disinformation is making a difference in terms of the Global South countries—for example, Brazil. Another example is the recent Slovak election, where they have declared that they are no longer going to be providing military assistance but will continue humanitarian assistance.

Foreign Affairs committee  From what I have seen, I think that having more diplomatic relations with the Global South is making a difference. We're seeing that in the working groups for the peace formula. While we have a tight G7 and European group here, we're now expanding that to include others. Just last week I met with the new Turkish ambassador, and that went very well, and I met with the Brazilian ambassador, so here on the ground I also am trying to expand in terms of the people I'm meeting and engaging with.

Foreign Affairs committee  The ICC has just recently opened up a field office. We are present, and in fact when I went to hear Prosecutor Khan speak, he thanked Canada specifically. We recently increased the number of Canadian personnel deployed here to 10, and also provided $2 million to the ICC trust fund to increase the court's capacity to investigate criminal activities, including sexual and gender-based crimes and crimes against children.

Foreign Affairs committee  It is a concern. From what I understand, we've seen evidence that they have started performing some tests as well. I would be able to provide the information that I have from here, and I agree that it is concerning.

Foreign Affairs committee  I understand that Russia's parliament completed the legislative process of de-ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty by unanimous vote in the upper chamber of parliament. A presidential decree is expected soon to complete the unusual step of de-ratification. While Russia insists that it is not withdrawing from the treaty, we are seeing reports of Russian nuclear training exercises, and Canada is monitoring the situation.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairperson, we had an almost entire replacement of the team this past summer, so we now have a team of 22 Canadian-based staff and 50 locally engaged staff present, and we are resuming a lot of our work. We're still waiting on some of our equipment that needs to be replaced, but we are operating in I believe 90% of full mode, and I believe that within a month or so we'll able to be back to where we were pre-war in our services.