There are two dimensions to my answer, Mr. Chairman.
First, we think, given the aggressive posture of Vladimir Putin, it is critically important that NATO demonstrate a message of resolve and deterrence. The worst thing to send an aggressor like Vladimir Putin is a message of weakness and uncertainty, because that could lead to a miscalculation.
Mr. Putin has expressed, effectively, a new political strategic doctrine. It's hardly new for Russia, but he has rearticulated a traditional Russian doctrine that Russia has a right and responsibility to “protect” russophone minorities anywhere they live, and that includes Romania. That includes the Baltic States. That includes Poland and Hungary and, indeed, obviously Ukraine as well as other countries in eastern and central Europe. This was the pretext for his invasion of Georgia. It has been the pretext for his illegal annexation of the Crimean territory of Ukraine and his support for and de facto invasion of the Donbas region and the eastern oblasts of Ukraine.
So given the sizable russophone minority in other eastern European countries, most particularly the small Baltic States, we and our NATO allies feel it's essential that we send a message of unity and resolve, which is why we are supporting Operation Reassurance, in which Canada's CF-18s have flown Baltic air policing missions. I can report that the HMCS Fredericton has been in the Black Sea and will shortly be doing patrols in the Baltic Sea. We have sent 250 Canadian infantrymen who are now stationed on joint exercises in eastern Poland, and our air force assets were located for a while in Romania. All of this sends a message of resolve.
In addition to that, outside of the NATO context, we are demonstrating solidarity with Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity, which is why we have announced the deployment of some 200 military personnel to Ukraine to provide such things as explosive ordnance disposal training, improvised explosive device disposal training, military police training, medical training, flight safety training, and logistics system modernization training.
Most of this will occur in the extreme west of Ukraine between Lviv and the Polish border in a training camp established in part with the assistance of Canada and the United States in a place called Yavoriv. It's some 1,300 kilometres away from the actual conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. This in addition to the provisioning of non-kinetic equipment to Ukraine and our diplomatic, political, and trade support such as the free trade negotiations, is all designed to send a message of resolve to support Ukrainian sovereignty.