Good afternoon, colleagues.
Welcome to the 38th meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
We're meeting this afternoon under Standing Order 108(2) and the motion we adopted on May 6, 2021, to receive a briefing on the current situation in Ukraine.
Members, you'll recall that we had agreed to a joint meeting with the Standing Committee on National Defence. The national defence committee currently has a meeting that is suspended, and parliamentary procedure does not allow for a committee to hold two meetings simultaneously. For that reason, the official joint meeting is not able to take place. However, we most certainly and warmly welcome members of the Standing Committee on National Defence to join us this afternoon and to take part in this meeting as guests.
To ensure an orderly meeting, I encourage all participants to mute their microphones when they're not speaking. When you have 30 seconds remaining in your allotted time, I will signal you with a piece of paper. As always, interpretation services are available through the globe icon at the bottom of your screens.
I will now welcome our witnesses from the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada.
We have with us this afternoon His Excellency Andriy Shevchenko, Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada; Colonel Viktor Siromakha, defence, naval and air attaché; and Mr. Oleksii Liashenko, political counsellor.
Ambassador Shevchenko, it's a pleasure to give you the floor for your opening remarks of seven minutes, if you please, and then we'll go to questions from members of the two committees.
Please go ahead, Ambassador. The floor is yours.