Thank you for the invitation to appear here.
As this committee knows, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is the federation of Ukrainian Canadian organizations here in Canada. We speak on behalf of a community of 1.4 million. We're looking forward to that census number and hoping it'll be even larger.
I am here to talk to you today about the Ukraine and Russia security crisis.
As you know, in February 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and since then has occupied Crimea and parts of the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk; it has also continued to fuel a war in eastern Ukraine, where over 13,000 people have been killed, 30,000 wounded and 1.5 million internally displaced within Ukraine.
In November 2021, Russia once again started to intensify troop movements near Ukraine's borders. A series of diplomatic discussions between the United States, NATO, the EU states, Ukraine and Russia have not yielded any concrete results or commitments from Russia to de-escalate aggression against Ukraine.
The UCC and our community believe strongly that now is the time for Canada to act further to deter Russian invasion, rather than wait for this invasion to happen. The most effective way, we believe, to deter a further Russian invasion is to take proactive rather than reactive steps. We welcome the extension and expansion of Operation Unifier, Canada's military training mission in Ukraine, announced by the government on January 26.
In the long run, the extension and expansion of this mission will critically strengthen Ukraine's defences. However, the threat of a Russian invasion grows every day, and the Ukrainian armed forces need our assistance further today. More than a dozen countries, including NATO allies of Canada, are supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine's armed forces in response to Russia's recent escalation of aggression and threats against Ukraine.
The threat of invasion is severe, and Russia stands ready to invade at any time. Ukrainians are not asking anyone to fight for them, but they do need our help to defend their country against the colonial power seeking to re-establish its dominance. We know the government of Ukraine has requested such assistance from the government of Canada for defensive weapons.
Second, we believe that sanctions will deprive the Russian state of revenue to continue to wage war and will reinforce the message to the Russian government that the west is resolute in countering Russian aggression. The UCC urges the foreign affairs committee to support further provision of defence weapons and stronger sanctioning against Russia and its officials.
We conducted a public opinion poll on January 20 and 21, which we shared with members of Parliament. It shows that three in four Canadians support or are open to supporting Canada's providing defensive weapons to Ukraine. The number of Canadians, 42%, who explicitly support the provision of weapons outnumbers the number of Canadians who oppose it, 23%, by almost two to one.
As you've seen this past weekend across Canada, Canadians from the Ukrainian community in some 30 communities in all 10 provinces came together to demonstrate their support for Ukraine and for Canada to provide defensive weapons. From St. John's to Victoria, Canadians strongly supported this campaign, and it is incomprehensible to us that the Canadian government continues to refuse to join our NATO allies in this important step to support Ukrainian independence.
A survey published on February 9 by the European Council on Foreign Relations also found that the citizens of Europe see NATO as the organization that is best positioned to defend Ukraine. Sixty-two per cent of respondents stated that NATO should come to the assistance of Ukraine if Russia were to invade.
Just to sum up, I know our next speaker will talk more about sanctions, but we believe that the implementation of stronger sanctions against Russia will have two effects. It will deprive the Russian state of revenue to continue to wage war, and it will reinforce the message to the Russian government that the west is resolute in countering Russian aggression. Personal sanctions must be broadened against Russian officials responsible for egregious human rights violations of Ukrainian citizens, and Canada should target oligarchs who are close to the Russian regime, wealthy business people who serve as the Putin regime's enablers and who have significant assets in the west.