Evidence of meeting #115 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sanctions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
I would like to welcome our guests from the Atlantic Council who are here to talk to us about the continuing situation in Ukraine. Obviously, a successful Ukraine is important to this country, and it's important to this committee. I want to thank all of you for coming today.
For the record, we have Mr. Anders Aslund, Ambassador Daniel Fried, Ambassador John Herbst and Mr. Adrian Karatnycky.
I believe Mr. Herbst is going to lead off with opening remarks.
John Herbst Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
Thank you. It's an honour to appear today before this Canadian parliamentary committee and be part of a group that includes Anders, Dan and Adrian, all world-renowned experts in their own right.
We are part of a greater Atlantic Council team devoted to supporting Ukraine as it fights Russian aggression and moves forward on reform, and more broadly, encouraging the west to push back against Kremlin revisionism designed to upend the security system that emerged in Europe and Eurasia at the end of the Cold War. That's what we've come to discuss with you today.
General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, was right when he said during a congressional testimony in the summer of 2015 that the greatest short-term security danger to the United States was coming from the Kremlin. This danger is not limited to the United States. It's a danger to NATO, the EU and, most immediately, Russia's neighbours that do not wish to be dominated by Moscow.
The west has been slow to understand this. Gradually, over the past several years, the U.S., NATO and even the EU have come to a more realistic understanding of the dangers posed by Kremlin policies, and have taken steps to mitigate those dangers. Despite President Trump's peculiar insistence on the need to improve relations with Mr. Putin, American policy in the past year and a half has actually and properly toughened against Kremlin aggression. This is likely to continue until the Kremlin backs off its provocative policies.
What some call the crisis of Ukraine is actually a crisis caused by Kremlin aggression. Moscow's war on Ukraine is not simply a matter of vital concern to Kiev; it is critical to the west, because Ukraine is the front line of our defence against Kremlin aggression.
Moscow has not hidden its destabilizing objectives. President Putin has said on multiple occasions that there must be new rules for the international order or there will be no rules. The old rules that Mr. Putin wants to get rid of were established by the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris, both signed by Moscow. The core principles he wants to get rid of are: the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations; the right of nations to choose their own internal, political and economic systems and their external alliances; and the commitment to resolve disputes by negotiations and international law rather than by military means.
As part of the demand for new rules, Mr. Putin insists on a sphere of influence in areas that once constituted part of the Soviet Union, if not the Warsaw Pact. He claims the right to intervene to protect ethnic Russians, and even Russian speakers when they are threatened. He burnished this bogeyman to justify his aggression on Ukraine. He can use the same pretext to intervene in Latvia and Estonia, NATO allies that have substantial Russian communities.
Moscow's objectives include weakening NATO in the EU. General Gerasimov, Russia's top soldier, laid out a doctrine of hybrid war in his famous article in 2013 that provides insights into Moscow's tactics. It stresses subterfuge, the use of disinformation, hard to trace cyber-operations, subversion, covert military operations, and when advantageous, conventional military strikes.
We have witnessed all of this in the past dozen years: the cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007; the war on Georgia in 2008; the ongoing war in Ukraine which uses all of these methods; interference in American, French, German and other elections, and in the British vote on Brexit; and provocations against the Baltic States, such as kidnapping an intelligence official from Estonia the day the 2014 NATO summit ended.
Kremlin misbehaviour is not limited to hybrid war tactics. For four years Moscow has been violating the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty. It has attacked Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom in violation of the chemical weapons convention. It has flown Russian military planes dangerously close to NATO ships and planes, including yesterday in the Black Sea. Russian mercenaries in Syria attacked U.S. troops and their local allies last February.
The point of this is simple. The greatest immediate danger to the west comes now from a revisionist Kremlin. We need to take the necessary measures to defend ourselves and protect our interests. Over the past two years, NATO has taken important steps. At the Warsaw summit in 2016, the alliance took the decision to bolster its military capacity in the Baltic States, Poland and Romania.
This brings us back to Ukraine. If Moscow loses in Donbass, its appetite for adventurism in the Baltics and elsewhere will disappear. Increasing our support for Ukraine, therefore, is a smart way to protect NATO allies and the post-Cold War security structure, which has provided security and prosperity over the past 25 years.
Ukraine surprised the Russian general staff by fighting Russia to a standstill in Donbass. Of course, Moscow chose a war of limited means, a covert, hybrid war, to fight against its own government. This effort and the broader plan to carve out a large Novorossiya simply failed. There was not nearly enough local support in Ukraine to sustain this project, so Russian officers, and at times regular Russian forces, had to take over the war.
Even with this advanced Russian position, they still fought within limits. They have not used air power. They have not used naval power. Doing that would rip off the mask that this is a covert war as opposed to a conventional Russian war. Moscow's growing inability, however, to hide its war in Ukraine is tied to two vulnerabilities that we must exploit. One, the Russian people do not want their soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Two, Russia has a weak economy. Regular polls by Moscow's Levada Centre demonstrate that over the last three years, the Russian people have consistently said no to regular Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Therefore, Mr. Putin hides his casualties from his own people.
The west needs to help Ukraine take advantage of this by providing weapons that will raise the cost to Moscow of its ongoing aggressions. Last December, President Trump finally decided to send Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. This was critical because the gains Moscow made in Donbass came by massing tanks. With Javelins, those tanks become targets. The Russian soldiers operating those tanks become sitting ducks, and this is a vulnerability to the Kremlin.
Ukraine needs help beyond Javelins. We have seen, since April, a major Russian escalation in the Sea of Azov. They have been stopping Ukrainian shipping. This has been choking the Ukrainian economy in Donbass. Shipping from Mariupol and Berdyansk has been under threat. Equally important, they've been running operations near Ukraine's Azov shore, suggesting they might launch amphibious operations. It would be very much in Ukraine's interest and in the west's interest to give Ukraine weapons such as surface-to-ship missiles that would make Russian amphibious operations vulnerable.
Ukraine's best strategic thinker, Volodymyr Horbulin, always says how vulnerable Ukraine would be to the use of Russian air power. The transfer of surface-to-air missiles would also be very much in the interest of Ukraine and NATO.
The west also needs to take stronger economic measures against Russia. Aside from hiding their casualties, there is one explanation for Russia's covert war in Ukraine. They've wanted to avoid or minimize sanctions. It took the west several months after the Russians seized Crimea. It took the shoot-down of the Malaysian aircraft with a Russian Buk missile to persuade the EU to launch serious sanctions against Russia.
We need more sanctions. The sanctions to date have been reactive. They have punished Russia for the bad things they have done. We should have proactive sanctions, which let Moscow know in advance that if they continue to do bad things, sanctions are going to get worse. For example, Ukraine takes regular casualties. There have been scores of shooting incidents over the ceasefire line, ever since Minsk I. Ukraine lost another soldier over the last couple of days; four were injured.
We need sanctions that say something like, the next 10 fatalities in Ukraine will lead to additional sanctions. The Kremlin has seized about 1,000 square kilometres of additional Ukrainian territory since the Minsk I ceasefire was implemented. A new sanction might say that the next 25 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory taken will lead to additional sanctions, so Moscow knows in advance that its current misbehaviour leads to a tightening of sanctions.
My last point is for something that would make a great deal of sense. I've already referred to what the Kremlin's been doing in the Sea of Azov. Over 150 Ukrainian ships have been stopped, and other ships, too, calling on the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol. We should look at legislation—the United States, Canada and the EU—that would forbid any Russian ship sailing from Rostov-on-Don, the main Russian port in the Sea of Azov, from stopping in our ports while harassment of Ukrainian shipping continues.
All these measures would increase the cost in the Kremlin of its aggression in Ukraine.
It's important to note that opponents of sanctions say sanctions don't work because they make the simplistic argument that we've had sanctions for over four years and the Russian intervention in Ukraine continues. This does not understand how sanctions work. Sanctions were never meant to lead to an immediate Russian withdrawal. It would be wonderful if they could, but that was never in the cards.
What sanctions have done is impose a cost on the Russian economy for their ongoing misbehaviour in Ukraine. Both the IMF and senior Russian economic officials said in 2016 that the sanctions cost Russia 1% to 1.25% of their GNP in that year. That cost continues to this day, which is why the Kremlin has sought to get sanctions lifted.
Financial elites in Russia understand the cost to their economy of Moscow's ongoing aggression. They represent an interest group in Moscow pushing against the war in Ukraine.
Over time, this will help lead to the right decision, for Russia to get out. But even before that, weakening the economy of a country with nuclear weapons, and the second-largest and most powerful military in the world, weakens its ability over the long term to wage war, and that is very much in our interests. People should not forget that.
I'll go to my last point. I wanted to focus on the national security dimensions at play, because they go beyond Ukraine's existential problems with Kremlin aggression, but reform in Ukraine is also a critical issue. I just want to make a few brief points on this.
Despite the headlines in the west and even in Ukrainian media, which tend to focus on the negative, the question of reform in Ukraine over the past four and a half years is by and large a positive one. Adrian and I have regular contacts—and Anders even more—with the international financial institutions that work on Ukraine's reform system progress. One of them said to Adrian and me 18 months ago that if he could have predicted in 2014 all the things that happened in the ensuing two and a half or three years, he would have been delighted.
As for those things that have happened, there are the changes in the gas sector which removed $7 billion of deficit from the Ukrainian budget and Ukraine's dependence on Russian natural gas, as well as the largest honey pot for corruption in Ukraine. It's gone as a result of this reform. There's the ProZorro government procurement system, which removed major corruption in the granting of government contracts. There's the cleanup of the banks in Ukraine, which were also piggy banks for rich and privileged people.
This is quite major progress. There are different steps but time prevents me from going into them.
There remain problems with corruption, especially in the courts and in the prosecuting authorities. These are being addressed, albeit too slowly for the taste of most of us, but we should not let our desire for perfection get in the way of a sound assessment that the record here is a pretty good one.
This comes back to national security, because Ukraine's success will ultimately be guaranteed by what it does in reforms. The west—the United States, Canada, the EU—and the international financial institutions have done a very good job of tough love, promoting reform with assistance and advice and an occasional whack when things have gone too slowly. This remains an important part of our policy and it should continue.
Ukraine will succeed with its reform, perhaps a little bit too slow for the taste of most of us, and when it does, it guarantees—and I use that word “guarantees” not loosely—that things will move in the right direction domestically in its neighbour to the north. The Putin style of governance, based upon corruption, authoritarianism and external aggression, will not be able to stand if Ukraine succeeds and develops a market economy with a democracy and a country that prospers. That example will blow away the ramparts of the Putin system.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Thank you very much for those important words, Ambassador.
We are really tight on time, so if you me do see this, it means I'd like you to wind down your answer or question within 30 seconds so I can respect everyone's time here and make sure everyone gets an opportunity.
The first seven minutes go to MP Dzerowicz.
Julie Dzerowicz Davenport, Lib.
Thank you so much. I'm sorry I missed the first three presentations, but I'm sure they were as excellent as the last one.
Was there just one presentation? Well, it was excellent.
I'm actually of Ukrainian heritage. My father's family came from Ukraine. They're from Lviv. The topic of Ukraine is a very emotional one for me and my family. They would have never left Ukraine if World War II hadn't happened. They were only reluctant Canadians, although they're now very proud today.
I want to start from that. I have visited Ukraine. I know it's a country that very much wants to move towards a market economy, towards democracy, and is working very hard on that. As well, it really wants peace. They really want peace as well.
First of all, I know there has been a request around Canada supporting Ukraine, around defensive weapons. I want to know what your thoughts are on that, whether you think that is a positive move in terms of what we're trying to do in the area in terms of peace and stability.
Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
This is absolutely essential to end the war in Donbass more quickly. The folks at this table were among the leaders, going back to late 2014, arguing for the United States and others to provide weapons, especially the Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Finally, President Trump made that decision in December of last year. Those who argued against us said Russia would escalate. They were wrong. Russia did not escalate.
What Ukraine needs now are weapons that would help, again, deal with possible amphibious and air attacks. It could also use support in the areas of intelligence sharing, communications equipment and training. Canada has been a leader in training, and it should continue the training program, which I believe is coming up for renewal in March, but if you could provide additional weapons, in consultations with Ukrainians, and maybe the United States, that would be wonderful.
Davenport, Lib.
Okay, thank you.
The other thing we have done in the area which you haven't touched on is that Canada has a presence in Latvia right now to try to also provide a stop to Russian aggression into that area. I would love your thoughts on our effectiveness in that.
Canada has also spent quite a bit of time and resources in building and strengthening democracy within Ukraine as well, their institutions and gender equity. How are we doing, and is there anything more we can do in that area?
Daniel Fried Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council
Canada's leadership of the multinational NATO forward-based battalion in Latvia is laudable. It's a good initiative, a good idea. The fact that NATO has now put forces into NATO's eastern tier is a big deal. That basically reverses 30 years of post-Cold War drawdown of American, North American and west European forces in NATO, reversed because of Russia's aggression in Ukraine. This is a strong signal and it has increased stability.
First, I applaud Canada's initiative and leadership in this area. Second, I underscore the importance of Canada's military-to-military relationship with Ukraine. Putin calculates resistance to his aggression. It's pretty simple: If he sees no resistance, he will “drive the bayonet further”—to steal a quote from Lenin—but if he meets resistance, he will tend to hold himself back. Therefore, I think this is good.
There are other areas in which Canada can work with the west to resist Russia's aggression. My last job in government was sanctions coordinator at the state department, and I had the pleasure of working with the Canadian government during the Obama administration, after the Russian attack on Ukraine. I have to say that Canada's work on sanctions was exemplary. It was a wonderful partner.
Davenport, Lib.
Thank you.
Could I get a response on the democracy question?
I have one last question as well.
Adrian Karatnycky Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
As a transition, I want to say the forthright stance that NATO has taken by more forwardly deploying its troop presence has also raised the confidence among Ukrainians that NATO is an important ally.
For decades, the public was suspicious of NATO because of old Soviet-era hangovers of propaganda. Today, if a referendum were held in Ukraine on NATO membership, 62% of the public would support it and only 26% would be opposed, so there is a forthright support for it.
I think that working with civil society and democratic institutions is extremely important because we are in a period where, if you look at the polling data from Ukraine, we do not know who will be the next president or what will be the configuration of the next parliament. It's very important to help structure civil society to give voice to continuing to advance a reform agenda, no matter who is in power.
The good news is that, no matter who is likely to be elected, a fifth column of Russia will operate but will have nothing near the ability to access power or to take over power. Ukraine's public is western-oriented, so working with that public.... If there is a populist president to keep them on the reform agenda, if there is a reluctant reformer president to keep them on the agenda, or if there is a reformer president, there is an opportunity for continued aid to civic society.
There is one caveat: that is to say, naming and shaming is extremely important. There are very many good civil society groups that are fighting corruption and so on, but they focus exclusively on exposing the failures. It's extremely important that aid packages also highlight successes so that the public has confidence that the reformers are actually succeeding, maybe not at the pace we would like, but they actually are.
Liberal
Davenport, Lib.
Okay.
What's the impact of the cancellation by the U.S. of the defence treaty—the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty—on the stabilization of Russia and Ukraine, and the crisis?
Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
I think that while we've disturbed some of our allies by doing this unilaterally, and perhaps without the consultation that would make sense, I would say it can be justified by the fact that Moscow has been violating this treaty for four years, and this demonstrates to the Kremlin that there's a price for not behaving properly.
There is also a fact that is very important in the calculations of the administration, which is that the INF treaty was only between the Soviet Union—now Russia—and the United States. It never included China. We've all watched a substantial Chinese military buildup in the western Pacific, and this will put the Chinese on notice.
Richard Martel Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC
Thank you for being here today.
My question will be in French.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
There's still a bit of time while we get people hooked up, so I'll move to MP Garrison, and then I'll come back.
MP Garrison.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm pleased to see discussion of the necessity of supporting reforms in Ukraine. I think all of us were very disappointed to see the death of anti-corruption activist Kateryna Handziuk yesterday as the result of an acid attack, and we welcome President Poroshenko's call for punishment of the attackers. However, it's incidents like this, I think, that make the point that was just made: there's a focus on the negativity and not on the positivity.
Is there anything you can say about the anti-corruption activities in terms of successes that have taken place in Ukraine?
Dr. Anders Aslund Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
I would say that what has really been successful has been transparency. Ukraine has introduced e-declarations of all assets of more than $100,000. Officials—so all parliamentarians, all ministers, all ministerial staff—have to declare what they have. They have declared an amazing amount. The average holding in cash of parliamentarians in Ukraine at home turned out to be $700,000—note that's dollars, not Ukrainian currency.
This has put a basis, and this has named and shamed the parliamentarians publicly over what they had, and it was the same with a lot of other officials. Also, ownership of most enterprises, for example, of all banks, has been redeemed.
Transparency works, and Ukraine is adamant on continuing that.
When it comes to law enforcement, it has not been so successful. Here it's particularly the security service and the prosecutor general's office that are in trouble.
You might have heard today that the Ukraine Parliament pushed for the sacking of the prosecutor general, who tendered his resignation today, but the majority refuted it. Also, the minister of the interior who has been exposed in this specific case. The media are very good, but all these cases do come out. The board does not function its prosecution and judgments, so this is what really needs to be improved.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thank you.
My party has been skeptical of the call for additional weapons to be sent to Ukraine, and instead it has been looking for ways to strengthen Ukrainian democracy and reform as a higher priority. Of course, we were disappointed that the government response to our committee's report on visa-free travel for Ukrainians to Canada was rejected.
I guess I'm looking for ways in which strengthening civil society could be made more effective by the allies of Ukraine. Certainly, we saw visa-free access as a way of simply strengthening those contacts, but are there other ways that other countries could help strengthen the civil society organizations?
Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
Something that is very effective and where Canada has played a big role is education. Ukraine today has tens of thousands of young Ukrainians with western education, mainly from Poland and followed probably by Germany, but also from Canada and the United States.
I think this is a very important contribution. When conditions are right, people come home. Probably six million Ukrainians are now working abroad. This is something similar to what happened in Poland. When conditions are right, people return home.
Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC
Mr. Herbst, in two months, there were 6,500 cyber-attacks on 36 Ukrainian targets. The Russian cyber-attacks targeted all aspects of Ukrainian life, from the destruction of its electrical grid to an infiltration of the media, and included attempted cyber-attacks of a plaster distribution plant.
How can we reduce Russian interference during elections?
Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council
I'm glad you asked. This is a major danger, and in fact we expect the Kremlin to intervene massively in the run-up to the Ukrainian presidential election.
We have established a project with the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity and the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to monitor this interference. We'll be looking at disinformation, cyber-operations, and military operations of various kinds, from the war in Donbass, to activities on the Sea of Azov, to assassinations. We'll be reporting on this.
We will have a website that will put up the latest news every day. We will send out a newsletter twice a week. We will be offering suggestions to the Ukrainian government on how to combat this. We have agreement with the Ukrainian government to work with us.
We will be in touch with governments in western Europe and the United States, and hopefully here in Ottawa, to talk about our findings so that Ukraine will be able to withstand an attack. This will be important in maintaining the integrity of Ukraine's election. It will also teach our countries about what the Kremlin may do with our own elections. It will be a learning experience for us.
Cyber is going to be an important part of this. Laura Galante, who is a former defence department official in the United States and a noted cyber-expert, will be leading our cyber team. As well, David Kramer, our former assistant secretary of state, will be leading our overall effort to monitor and fight back against Kremlin interference in Ukraine's election, including in the cyber field.
Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council
I want to add a point. The cyber-aggression that Russia uses in Ukraine, they will perfect and use against us. They already have.
If I can make a provocative historical analogy, the Spanish Civil War was the testing ground for new methods of aggressions to be used first in Spain and then elsewhere by aggressive powers.
Many people in the west, including in the United States, believe that Russian aggression against Ukraine had nothing to do with them. They have now discovered their error.
We have all seen Russian cyber-attacks against the United States, against west Europeans, as well as against the Baltics, the Estonians, the Ukrainians and the Poles. We need to study what the Russians are doing and prepare both defensive measures and potential sanctions steps, acting as a community of the western democracies, and explore other steps to prevent the Russians from operating with impunity.
Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC
The committee learned that Ukraine was facing significant threats posed by the presence of tanks and artillery. In a precarious economic situation, Ukraine asked the West for help in the form of more robust equipment. In your opinion, how long do you think Ukraine can keep up its attempts to reconquer its territory without the necessary means to effectively counter the Russian offensive?