National Defence Committee on Oct. 16th, 2017

[Peggy Mason]

Of course, the OSCE mission, if all.... I should step back and say that a key element in the choice of forces for a UN peacekeeping operation is that they are acceptable to all sides. So, yes, if we became acceptable to all sides, then we could. In the OSCE context, because of our long history and work there, they're obviously comfortable with us. But that's the key element. What guides the formation of all UN peacekeeping operations is that all elements of it are acceptable to all sides.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Fisher, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to all you folks for your testimony. It certainly adds to the complexity of the issue when we hear the three differing sides.

I think we all agree that Russia's aggression towards Ukraine is more than just the fact that it sees Ukraine as being within its Russian sphere of influence.

Dr. Kuzio, you mentioned Ukraine's interest in EU and NATO, and you had three interesting terms that I jotted down: geopolitical tug-of-war, empire building, and national unity. Those are all things that I think of as well that might have led to the aggression—mostly the first one, the EU and the NATO.

You commented that in Moscow, they feel that the Ukrainian people would love to be back in the—for lack of a better term—arms of Mother Russia. Certainly, we know that's not the case, but I'm interested in Russia's absolute great ability at information warfare and how that may or may not be impacting the feeling of the people in Ukraine, especially along the borders.

Do you feel this is having some impact? I'd just like to know your thoughts on that.

Doctor, I'm going to turn my spare time after your answer over to my colleague Mr. Wrzesnewskyj. I have more things I'd like to ask, but I'd love to hear from Mr. Wrzesnewskyj as well.

[Dr. Taras Kuzio]

The war and conflict, as in every war and conflict, has fundamentally changed Ukraine, and opinion polls show that, without any doubt. If there were a referendum held today in Ukraine on NATO membership, 78% would support NATO membership. That has jumped massively from about 30% up until 2014. It's the same with the European Union.

The idea that Ukrainians want to go back to Mother Russia is a fantasy in Moscow. It's not reflected in opinion polls in Ukraine. The pro-Russian, shall we say, political camp is either today outside of Ukraine's borders in occupied territory or is being completely marginalized because of the Yanukovych era.

The information war is a very good point. I think the reason that protests against the Euromaidan revolution in Donetsk turned into a violent insurgency was partly because of the information war. People watched Russian television, social media, and the like. Ukrainians who supported the Euromaidan were depicted as fascists. If somebody is a fascist in the sense of World War II, then they can be subjected to inhuman treatment, executed, and such like, which is actually what happened. That information war was the softening up and the mobilization of people from protest to actually taking up arms, which was then supported by the so-called little green men, the Russian special forces that came in, in April 2014.

The information war is very important here, particularly because there's a long legacy of that in the Soviet Union, and people tend to forget that. They think that Putin invented all this in 2014. Well actually, no. Disinformation was part of the Soviet experience and there was always a massive Soviet information campaign against so-called Ukraine nationalism and Ukraine émigrés, including émigrés in Canada. That information war built up on that, and in the eyes of Moscow, you were either a good little Russian who supported the Russian world, or you were a fascist who supported Ukraine's integration with the west.

That's the simple world that was portrayed on Russian TV. So the information war, in the way it was done, killed people and subjected a lot of people, including Ukraine soldiers, to inhuman treatment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you to my colleague for passing some time over to me.

Ms. Mason, you referenced 20 years of experience that's informed your statements. Have you ever worked on projects on the ground in Ukraine?

[Peggy Mason]

I haven't worked on projects on the ground in Ukraine, but I have trained Ukrainian military, and I have been in Ukraine dealing with other issues, namely, the nuclear weapons issue, which was referenced by my colleague.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So you don't actually have on-the-ground experience within Ukraine. Have you worked with any pro-democracy or pro-human rights organizations in Russia?

[Peggy Mason]

No, I have not. That is not what is informing my comments. I indicated training in UN and NATO peacekeeping on the ground in a range of places—that's what I stated—as well as a lot of diplomatic engagement, including in Russia and in Ukraine—

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[Peggy Mason]

—and with Russians and Ukrainians.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You spent a bit of time criticizing the House's unanimous passage of Bill S-226. All five parties, in a rare show of unanimity, passed this legislation, global Magnitsky legislation against gross human rights abusers.

I'd like to follow your logic. You said the passage of this bill precludes us from doing some of the work that we're discussing today here in Ukraine. Would it also preclude us from doing work in Venezuela and Myanmar? If we follow the opposite tack, if we're not to enact legislation that would sanction gross human rights abusers wherever they're found, and for a country that is militarily invaded and has territory annexed, something we haven't seen in Europe since the 1930s, that country is not to be provided with defensive weapons, and we're not to support human rights people who stand up against dictators and corrupt regimes for basic human rights, isn't that the definition of diplomatic appeasement?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to hold that there. I have to yield the floor to Mr. Gerretsen. He's welcome to continue that response. We'll have time to circle back, but I'm going to have to yield the floor.

[Peggy Mason]

Oh, come on.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to apologize for just getting in. I was at another meeting, so I did miss the opening comments. I apologize in advance if I'm repeating or asking witnesses to repeat.

Mr. Luciuk, it's nice to see you again. I have a question for you as it relates to Canada's role in Ukraine. We're there to help train and assist the Ukrainian troops. During our recent visit there, the stark difference between the leadership and the way that the leadership from both the Ukrainian and Canadian armies operate differently could not have been any more clear. It seems that there are real cultural differences to the structures. How can Canada play a role in trying to educate and transform the way that the Ukrainian military and their structures operate, in particular, from the top down?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I'm assuming you were at the Yavoriv training base in western Ukraine, or at Kamianets-Podilskyi. These are the two main places where Canadian troops are currently training their Ukrainian counterparts, and it's done from the ground level up, battalion by battalion, sergeants and corporals training sergeants and corporals, and so on, all the way up the ranks. They are bringing a certain amount of commonality to the way in which soldiers in both armed forces deal with the same kinds of issues. There are Ukrainian officers training at Fort Frontenac in Kingston, in your own riding, right now.

There is that process of education and training, and it is, as I mentioned before you came in, something that both the Canadians soldiers I spoke to, including ex-RMC graduates who are now deployed in the field.... Our people are learning from the Ukrainians and the Ukrainians are learning from the Canadians. It seems to be a mutually beneficial.

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

You'd say that, based on your judgment, it's working.

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I'd say it's absolutely working, and I'm quoting a Canadian officer who was stationed—

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

It was fascinating. One night we had dinner with the troops, and I ended up sitting across from a Ukrainian soldier. He didn't know where I was from, and he said, “Oh, I went to this place called Kingston in Canada for training.” It was a really interesting connection to make in eastern Europe.

Mr. Kuzio, I want to ask you a question about the corruption. I think it's safe to say that there is a certain level of corruption that exists in Ukraine. I found it extremely fascinating how, at the political level, there still seemed to be this level of corruption in terms of how people are elected, how people move through government.

However, at the grassroots level, in Kiev we met with the new chief of police—who couldn't have been much older than 30—who told us about the reforms and how they've changed the police. They basically said that anybody who's over the age of 30 is no longer allowed there. If they're under the age of the 30, they can reapply. They've changed and tried to wipe out this corruption at the grassroots level, yet at the higher level, at the political level, or the executive level, for lack of a better expression, the corruption still seems to be so entrenched.

In the last minute or so that I have, can you explain how those two worlds are going to survive together? What's the outcome? How can Canada help with that?

[Dr. Taras Kuzio]

Thank you for a massive question.

In a very quick way, since 2014, what has been created with the support of western partners—IMF and such, the European Union—is that all of the institutions are required to combat corruption. The next one that's on the horizon is the special anti-corruption court. That's all in place. That's not really a problem.

The problem is getting people to go to jail—convictions. I think that's what Ukrainians want. They want to see justice. They want to see accountability for ruling elites, which has not existed, ever, in that part of the world.

What you have, which makes Ukraine different from the rest of the former U.S.S.R., is a very vibrant civil society, as you mentioned, very active young people, very good journalists doing great investigative work. You can sit in a taxi in Ukraine and the taxi driver will tell you everything there is to know about corruption in politics. People are far more interested in politics in Ukraine than in a typical western country.

The biggest problem is that with the huge amount of information, which doesn't exist in Russia or somewhere like that because there's no free media there—in Ukraine, you have a free media—about abuse of office, nothing really happens in terms of people going to jail.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to stop you right there, Mr. Kuzio, and yield the floor to Mr. Hoback.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

This is my first question on the defence committee, so please bear with me as I'm trying to learn this file.

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

Welcome to joining us cool kids.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes, exactly. It's a little different from trade, that's for sure.

One thing we're trying to do here is to understand what Canada can do to help Ukraine's defence capabilities, so they have the resources. I guess I'm trying to get around, first of all, the fake news aspect of it and the PR game that's being played on both sides, outside the region and inside the region.

Mr. Luciuk, can you give us some examples of fake news? Can you give us some ideas on how to separate what's real and what's fake? Do you have any advice on that?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

There's one that I made reference to in Crimea in 2010. The billboards that were being put up everywhere suggested that the people of Crimea saw their future prosperity in the Russian Federation, and separatist posters, placards, were being completely ignored by the government in Kiev because the government in Kiev at the time was basically in cahoots with Moscow.

More important is the disinformation campaign and the defamation campaign that's been orchestrated in the west. I'm not a specialist on American politics, so I won't talk about that, but I can speak specifically to what happened to our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, when she was accused, on the basis of a spurious story, that somehow she was a closet fascist because her grandfather may have been a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War. It's as if the sins of the father should be vested on the daughter. Even if we believe that, there's no evidence of that. In fact, I interviewed one of that man's colleagues completely independently back in the 1980s. I had no idea of who Chrystia Freeland was in the 1980s. I interviewed a colleague from Krakowski Visti, the newspaper that was being referred to, and asked him how he could work under the Nazi administration. He said it was a cover for a Ukrainian nationalist organization. Simple. You have to believe him.

There's that kind of disinformation that Professor Kuzio talked about as well, about Ukrainian fascists running around in Kiev. Yes, there are some right-wing people in Ukraine. There are some right-wing people in the United States, as we all know. So what? They are a tiny minority. Some of those people, yes, did rally to Ukraine's defence in 2014, picked up their hunting rifles, and went to the front lines and were brave soldiers, minutemen if you like, of the war of independence. However, the vast majority of front-line soldiers are now all professionals. The disinformation about Nazis and fascists running the Government of Ukraine is just that; it's a myth that the Russian and Soviet propagandists have been playing since the fifties, since the first Cold War.