National Defence Committee on June 12th, 2018

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the Ukrainian MPs for being here today. I think it is an important part of making Canadians aware of what's happening in Ukraine. Whatever differences we might have over the question of lethal weapons, there is unanimous support in this Parliament for strengthening Ukraine.

I want to take up something you mentioned yesterday about Operation Unifier and the necessity of extending that program. Can you tell us a little about what the situation is at this point and what you have heard from the Canadian government?

[Artur Gerasimov]

Thank you very much.

First of all, it's great. Thank you for not just supporting in communiqués or in messages, but for real support on the ground. Operation Unifier is now one of the best examples of something that is really helping the Ukrainian army in different ways. Now we are going to say thank you for your recent decision to increase this mission to all around the territory of Ukraine, excluding the front line.

My comment yesterday, and I also want to talk about it right now, is that we are receiving great knowledge from Canadian officers and soldiers, but at the same time the Ukrainian army has real experience not only with the front-line issues but also with hybrid war issues, because this is not just about the front line. This is cybersecurity. This is media. This is political influence.

At first glance, maybe it's not a security issue, but what Russia is doing in Ukraine they are spreading all around to other countries, so maybe in Operation Unifier you need to send not only the specialists who teach Ukrainians but also some people who can collect knowledge from Ukrainian society about the hybrid warfare attempts by Russia in different directions.

What do we know exactly? They are trying it in Ukraine. Okay. At some point in time, it will be all around the world. It's just a question of which country and what time. That's their point.

[Yurii Levchenko]

You asked how important Operation Unifier is for us and how important its continuation will be for us. I want to stress that I think it's extremely important.

You have to realize that our army, essentially, before the beginning of the war didn't exist. At the beginning of the war there were only 4,000 personnel who were battle ready, or roughly battle ready, out of almost 200,000 on paper. Of course, through direct combat, direct training, the war has created an army, a good army, but this training needs to continue, because you cannot create the army that we need, considering who our neighbour is, in four years' time. We can't do it in that time frame, considering the relatively low resources, considering the fact that we are under constant aggression, and considering the fact of how good this army needs to be for the future.

I think such programs as Unifier will be very important, to be honest, for many years to come, especially considering the fact that it is the strategic goal for all Ukrainian parties in Parliament, whether in government or not, to join NATO. If we want to join NATO, we need to continue this training to get closer to NATO standards.

We much appreciate these programs and we hope these programs will continue indefinitely with no terms applied to them.

[Artur Gerasimov]

I would just take 10 seconds to add to the question Mr. Bezan asked.

We need to take into account not only the current size of the Ukrainian army but also that in the first line of reserve we have several hundred thousand people who have passed the front line and have battle experience, and they are also, in case it's needed, ready to go and to stand in the line with the army service right now.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

In committee we discussed some of the other things that Canada can do to help strengthen Ukraine. One of the things we talked about was implementing visa-free travel for Ukrainians travelling to Canada, in line with our free trade agreement. We have a free trade agreement and we want to grow those contacts visa-free.

When we were in Ukraine, we were told that talks had begun. That was quite some time ago. Do you have any information about an update on the progress of those talks?

[Artur Gerasimov]

Truthfully, at the moment there is no progress. Let's be fair.

Our idea is as follows: Ukraine is a very reliable nation, not only from the military point of view. Let's look at the result of a visa-free regime with the European Union, because many skeptics thought Ukrainians went to.... No. At the moment it's realized by the European monitoring missions that it was just a few people who went to Europe using the visa-free regime. Of those, 99.9% went and came back to Ukraine.

Our idea is you have your KPIs for a visa-free regime as a country, and let's use the same approach we use with the European Union. You have KPIs, you are monitoring, and we are providing as a country. If we meet the KPIs of Canada, you will provide a visa-free regime. We are ready for this. Now we are working on visa-free regimes not only with the European Union but with a great many countries around the world, and now the Ukrainian passport is going up in the list of passports.

Last but not least is that when I was speaking about a visa-free regime from the security point of view, it was just for interest and information. At the preparational level, there's the new draft law related to citizenship in Ukraine—not citizenship as citizenship, but the way it can be received.

At the moment the presidential commission can provide it and the immigration service can also provide it. According to this draft law, the immigration service will lose the possibility to provide citizenship, and it will be only by presidential commission. Why? It's because it will be a much narrower way and it will be much more strict, because at the moment we want to be even more reliable even than we were.

[Yurii Levchenko]

I would like to stress from personal experience the importance of visa-free travel with Canada. I had the chance to study in London. I graduated from the London School of Economics and came back to Ukraine after that. I think it is very important, especially for young Ukrainians, to see as much as possible of the western world and to have experience with the western world and to improve their knowledge of English, which is very important. Now I can speak with you without a translator, which is quite useful, I would say, in terms of Ukraine's needs. This is very important.

I think that the more people visit the west, the more people experience the west, the better things will be in Ukraine, politically speaking. I think this is a very important initiative and I ask all of you to engage in this problem however you can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

MP Fisher is next.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will share my time with Ms. Alleslev because I know we're running out of time.

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for being here.

Mr. Levchenko, you were talking about ceasefires. I'm really curious about why they keep announcing more ceasefires. I think you said there were 13, and within 10 minutes of the 13th, they were shelling. Can you tell me a little bit about that process? Why is there an agreement for further ceasefires when no one has any expectation that a ceasefire is actually going to occur?

After that, Mr. Gerasimov, you said that you've been at the front line. Can you paint that picture a little bit for someone who doesn't have a military background, that picture of what the front line looks like around the time of a ceasefire?

[Yurii Levchenko]

With regard to the situation with the ceasefires, as Artur said, we are a law-abiding nation and we are a nation that does its utmost to fulfill its international obligations. As you know, we have signed the Minsk agreements. We have certain obligations under the Minsk agreements. One of the obligations is for there to be a permanent ceasefire, for there to be no more shelling one way or another, but it is always from our side. Whenever the occupying forces start their unprovoked shelling, we try to stop this by engaging within the Minsk process to try to create another ceasefire. It is basically a ceasefire within a ceasefire. There is supposed to be a permanent ceasefire, but it's broken all the time, so we try to restart the permanent ceasefire. This is our initiative.

First of all, there is a purely diplomatic logic to it: if there is supposed to be a ceasefire in the Minsk agreements, then let's try to make it work. That's number one. Then there is number two: let's do our utmost to stop these deaths from happening, both to our servicemen and women and in terms of the civilian population.

This is always Ukraine's initiative. Unfortunately, even after the occupying administration agrees to the ceasefire, within 10 minutes to one day these ceasefires are usually broken. We just hope that the international community looks at this, records it, and realizes that this is once again another reason to see who these people really are, how they actually work, and what they stand for. They don't actually want to have a permanent ceasefire and a permanent de-escalation.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

If you return fire 11 minutes afterward and if they fire 10 minutes afterward, are you returning fire or are you...?

[Yurii Levchenko]

In terms of returning fire, that's also forbidden under the Minsk agreements. Only in cases of direct threats or, to be honest—and here we might disagree, but I'm just saying the way that it works—only when our soldiers' lives are threatened directly or have already been lost might we give direction to return fire on the sources of incoming fire. However, this is only in such cases. We try to uphold the Minsk agreements to the utmost.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

If you are able to add something so that we can at least save a couple more minutes for another question....

[Artur Gerasimov]

Yes, I will be very short. Here is just one concrete example about what a ceasefire means.

Life on the front line for common people is very hard. For example, my biggest result of the last two years is that in some five-storey buildings, I provided water to the fifth floor. For me, it was a great success. I made a lot of negotiations. Some people were saying, “So what?” I'm saying, “You know what? For the oldest ladies to carry water to the fifth floor.... Now they have it.” As well, I tried to recover their roof. I provided everything: materials, people, etc. Do you know what the Russians started to do? They started to play with their snipers, and not to kill. They started to play 50 centimetres left and 50 right. Can you imagine my workers, who, as you know, did not like that? It was enough that we negotiated three months to receive a real ceasefire. They saw that these were workers, that they were repairing the roof.

Now about the front line. First of all, I visited it really frequently. By the way, many people are telling me very good words about the Canadian training. Many people have taken it. We are saying that the training's very good.

What is the front line? According to the Minsk agreement, we have a GPS line, a line defined by GPS coordinates. That's the line. After, from our side, of course, we have troops that are now allowed to go further, but all the time the Russians are trying, you know. What is the difference? The difference is that they are going further than the Minsk line. We are never. If we are moving maybe 500 metres or one kilometre ahead, this is only before the Minsk line. This is a very big difference, because Russia is now trying to say, “Aha, the Ukrainian line moved one kilometre”, but guys, let's see the Minsk line.

For example, there is the case of the Debaltseve battle. Debaltseve, according to the Minsk agreement, has to be Ukrainian. Now it's under occupation. Of course, now we have removed all the heavy weaponry according to the Minsk agreement. Unfortunately, Russia has not. All the time, the OSCE special monitoring mission mentions it.

By the way, here is one of the biggest problems. On our territory, they are allowed to visit whatever they want. On the occupied territory, it's “This place, no; this place, no; please stop; please stop.” This is a problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Before we continue, we have about three minutes left to give Ms. Alleslev time for one more question. As we have a unique opportunity with these MPs from Ukraine and I don't anticipate a ton of issues with the report, if we could extend until about 10 minutes after, it would give us five minutes to say our goodbyes and 30 minutes to go in camera and consider our report, if that would be acceptable to the committee.

Thank you. You have the last question, Ms. Alleslev.

[Leona Alleslev, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

Could you share some information around the relationship with the Canadian defence industry? We've talked about government-to-government relations and what we could do to help there. Could you give us some idea of the relationship with the Canadian defence industry and what, if anything, we might be able to do to help further those kinds of relations to provide you support in that area?

[Artur Gerasimov]

First, you will know that recently we signed a defence co-operation arrangement, and we are working hard in this direction. There are a few new things I want to share.

At the moment, at the preparation level, the new draft law, which will be introduced in our parliament, I think, in a couple of months, and will be then voted on for sure, will allow us to much more easily create joint ventures in the Ukrainian defence industry with our NATO partners.

That's important because in Ukraine joint ventures in the defence area are not easy. There are many bureaucratic obstacles, particularly in the area of the defence industry. Now we are at the preparation level of this draft law and we are creating a working group with our NATO partners. I think it will be adopted this year, and we will see the possibility to proceed much more quickly in this direction.

A second point is that in particular areas, we have quite good enterprises. Over the last two or three years, the Ukrainian defence industry has come back to the top 10 in the world. In terms of quality, we are good in missiles—yes, that's true. Recently, this year, we quite quickly finished the creation of new small missiles, but we need high-tech things. This, I think, is the real area of co-operation: high-tech things from the Canadian side and the basic things from our side. To get this in place would be very good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Go ahead, Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to present a motion, in light of what we heard today. I move:

That the Standing Committee on National Defence report to the House on testimony received during its meeting on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 concerning an update on the situation in Ukraine, as a follow-up to its Report on “Canada`s Support to Ukraine in Crisis and Armed Conflict”, tabled in the House of Commons in December 2017.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Go ahead, Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Would there be any recommendations in that, or just a summary of what we heard?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I'm suggesting a summary of what we heard today. We've got a report that already contains recommendations. This is just to update the report we filed back in December.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Will we have an opportunity to review the summary first?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Of course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

All in favour? Opposed?

(Motion agreed to)

Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. Success in Ukraine matters to this committee very much. We'll continue to provide a voice and opportunity for you to speak on the matter.

The meeting is adjourned.

[Proceedings continue in camera]