Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for inviting us this morning. It is a pleasure and an honour to participate in today's meeting for me as well.
In recent days, we've seen a devastating invasion. It's been devastating for the Ukrainian people and their armed forces. The images unfolding in front of us are difficult for the world to watch. They're difficult for Canadians and difficult for the men and women of the Canadian Forces. Since 2015, under Operation Unifier, our members have worked side by side with Ukrainians and have trained thousands of our Ukrainian counterparts to help them defend themselves against an eventuality like this one.
Over the recent months and weeks, we closely watched Putin prepare this terrible invasion, and for this reason we were ready. All of our troops have now been relocated from Ukraine to Poland. We will continue to look at avenues to support Ukrainian security forces in a training role when conditions allow. We have sent lethal and non-lethal aid, and we'll continue to do so in the coming days and weeks.
So far, we have sent nearly $8 million in defensive equipment and support items. They have been delivered in full. We have also authorized the provision of an additional $25 million in non-lethal aid, as requested by our Ukrainian counterparts.
We announced yesterday that we're sending two military transport aircraft to Europe to help NATO allies move personnel and equipment around Europe and military aid near the Ukrainian border.
We now have to turn our attention to deterrents in Europe and in North America. Under Operation Reassurance, our operation in Europe, we will bolster our NATO eastern flank by sending additional troops to Latvia, an additional frigate and a military patrol aircraft, which recently arrived in Europe. We've also placed additional troops from all of our branches—navy, army and air force—on high readiness to be able to deploy to Europe should NATO require additional capabilities.
We are still in the first five days of this crisis, and the situation is evolving quickly. I hope our contribution today will help you and our fellow Canadians understand a bit more about what we're doing in these difficult times.
Thank you.