National Defence Committee on Oct. 16th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I would like to welcome everyone to today's discussion on the crisis in Ukraine and Canada's potential involvement in helping in that regard.

We have three people here to continue the discussion. Via video conference we have Dr. Taras Kuzio, non-resident fellow, Centre for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University. Thank you for joining us. We have Dr. Luciuk, professor, Royal Military College of Canada, department of political science, and we have Ms. Peggy Mason from the Rideau Institute.

Thank you for coming.

Just so there are no surprises, at some point during this proceeding, we may have votes, so if you see a light flash, I might have to stop you in mid-sentence and we might have to leave the building. That's so there are no surprises.

Last but not least, we're going to save 10 minutes at the end of the meeting to deal with committee business. We'll go until about 5:20, assuming that we're not interrupted by votes.

Having said all that, Dr. Kuzio, since you're via video conference and we have you loud and clear, we would like to give you the floor for your opening remarks. The floor is yours.

[Dr. Taras Kuzio, Non-Resident Fellow, Centre for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University, As an Individual]

I'd like to, first of all, say that there have been approximately five different explanations of the crisis in Ukraine.

The first one I would describe as blaming the west. This is a rather curious alliance of left-wing critics of U.S. foreign policy and NATO and right-wing realists. Both of them blame the EU, NATO, and democracy promotion as leading to a counter-reaction by Vladimir Putin and Russia. Both of these groups, realists and left-wing critics, support some kind of grand bargain, a second Yalta agreement as in 1945, between the great powers that would consign Ukraine to a Russian sphere of influence. They tend to ignore domestic influences.

The second group, I would say, describes the crisis in Ukraine as a product of the geopolitical tug-of-war, particularly between the European Union and Russia.

The third is what I would call empire building, where Putin is branded as trying to rebuild a mini U.S.S.R. as in the Eurasian Union and as a kind of regional troublemaker.

The fourth, which is something I think is quite pertinent, is that this is a product of a domestic-type regime inside Russia, particularly what western political scientists call a militocracy. This is a regime run by the former KGB intelligence officers with a heavy dose of Russian nationalism.

My own personal favourite, which is, ironically, not really very much discussed in the west, is that it's a question of national identity. If Vladimir Putin were to wake up tomorrow and accept that Ukrainians are a separate people to Russians, that Ukraine is a sovereign country with the right to its own destiny and the right to decide its own future and where it wants to be, then the war would probably end very quickly. I think that aspect has not really had sufficient discussion in the west. There's a great quotation by Henry Kissinger, who said that he's never met a Russian who accepts that Ukrainians are a separate people.

National identity is very much at the root of the crisis in Ukraine and the inability of the Russian leadership to accept that Ukrainians are a separate people. Putin has repeatedly said the Russians and Ukrainians are one people; that the Ukraine is an artificial state, a failed state; that the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine are really Russian and therefore were wrongly included in Ukraine; and—this is actually quite amusing, but it is what is believed in Moscow—that the Ukrainian people would love to unite with the Russians, but they're being held back by oligarchs and other corrupt elites who are in the pay of the west. This is what is actually believed.

This is why I say that Russia does not really understand the internal dynamics of Ukraine. In fact, I would say that western experts and diplomats have a better understanding of what is taking place inside Ukraine than those in Moscow do. In Moscow, they approach Ukraine with stereotypes and mythology.

The one thing they cannot understand in Moscow is that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are patriots of the country. That was certainly seen in 2014. The idea that you can be a Russian-speaking Ukrainian and a patriot of the Ukraine is beyond them. In the eyes of Moscow, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian should be pro-Russian and pro-Putin. That was not the case in 2014. It's not the case today.

I was to the front line a few times last year. There are many Russian speakers fighting for Ukraine on the front line. Something like 50% to 60% of the soldiers are Russian speakers on the Ukrainian side. Therefore, it's wrong that some experts and journalists, particularly in Moscow, describe the conflict as a civil war between two groups of speakers, Ukrainian and Russian speakers. That's certainly not the case because there are Russian and Ukrainian speakers on the Ukrainian side. It is not the way opinion polls show that Ukrainians look at this.

Ultimately, the problem lies in the fact that the Russian leadership does not accept that Ukrainians are a people who have a right to decide their own geopolitical destiny and, therefore, their natural home is in the Eurasian Union and the Russian world, and the type of person who should be running Ukraine is somebody along the lines of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

The problem that Moscow has is that that kind of conception of Ukraine would not match reality up until 2014. Hence, we had a revolution—a popular uprising—and it certainly does not match the situation today. When you have conflict and war, that inevitably speeds up the formation of national identity. Today, when you have 75% of Ukrainians are negatively disposed towards Vladimir Putin.

I'll just go over the last line because I'm coming to the end. Looking to the future, I think that this conflict is very deep and therefore long term, because in every regional environment where you have national identity questions, these take a long time to change. The majority of Russians, and the opposition by the way, the so-called democratic opposition, support the annexation of the Crimea and very few of them are really critical about Putin's policies towards Ukraine.

If Putin were no longer to be the President of Russia tomorrow, I don't think that much would change inside Russia. Russia would remain on its course towards Ukraine, which is aggressively disposed and I think also anti-western. Russia views its war in Ukraine as part of its overall conflict with the west. Russian leaders are adamant and they believe that to be viewed as a great power and equal to the U.S., they need to dominate their environment and their neighbourhood. That includes Ukraine, in particular.

I think this conflict will be with us for a long time. I don't see it being resolved very quickly because I don't think these kinds of national identity questions change overnight. They take a long time to change and may be generational.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

Ms. Mason, if you're ready, I will yield the floor to you.

[Peggy Mason, President, Rideau Institute on International Affairs]

Thank you very much for inviting me here today.

I apologize as I don't have a written text, but I did provide a copy of my notes to the interpreters.

I want to focus very specifically on what might be possible now. It seems to me that there is an urgent need to focus on the opportunity that has opened due to proposals from both Ukraine and Russia for a UN peacekeeping operation in support of the Minsk agreement. Of course, they're differing proposals and they're a long way apart, but nonetheless, it is an opportunity for dialogue in support of the Minsk agreement.

I would note that very recently the Ukrainian minister of defence, President Putin, and Chancellor Merkel have all reiterated strongly there is no alternative to the Minsk agreement, so it seems to me that we, and I include in that Canada, but the west in particular, must urge both sides, that is, Russia and Ukraine, to do much more to arrange and implement local ceasefires, including humanitarian ceasefires. There is a terrible humanitarian situation on the ground, but there's a long UN experience—and OSCE, I might say, not as long as the UN but nonetheless important—with trying to facilitate and implement local ceasefires, including humanitarian ceasefires and, of course, negotiation of the last of the three agreed disengagement areas. That would improve civilian lives in the war zone, but it would also be a step towards addressing the grave danger that exists right now of the deployment of hostile forces and weapons systems close to the line of separation. There's no doubt that in the context of those elements discussion, good faith discussion, on a UN peacekeeping operation, its scope and mandate, can help in those areas.

In order for this fragile opportunity to bear fruit, it seems to me there is a need to avoid any escalatory actions, such as delivery of weapons, even defensive, which from all I can gather from my review of the commentary, provide little military advantage yet could undermine fragile prospects for progress. The escalation would result because each side feels it must respond to a show of force by the other. In this regard it seems to me that Canada should be guided by the caution that Europeans have shown to the prospect of weapons supplies to Ukraine.

Speaking of a Canadian role, despite the calls by some, regrettably in my view—and I speak to this with 20 years of experience in UN, NATO, and European Union peacekeeping training—I do not think that Canada can contribute to a potential UN peacekeeping operation due to our military role in Ukraine as part of NATO, which vitiates the requirement of impartiality, and also the potential passage of the Canadian version of the Magnitsky Act, which will only exacerbate our perceived hostility against Russia. I'll say more about that.

This act, and I speak as a lawyer with a long experience of how Canada has handled this in the past, involves, in my view, Canada adopting American unilateralism and extraterritorial application of its domestic law, which we have always avoided doing, except in a couple of cases, such as UN sanctions, UN arms embargos, and also, I think, child trafficking. I think those are the only areas where we have extraterritorial application of our domestic law. It involves adoption as well of American double standards when it comes to addressing gross human rights violations by friends and allies.

I say adopting American double standards because does anyone seriously think we're going to apply this law to Saudi Arabia, which is routinely listed as one of the worst human rights abusers in the world? What about Israel for its actions in the Palestinian-occupied territories or Gaza? What about the question Russia asked: does anyone believe that Canada would sanction the U.S.A. for legalizing torture and unlawful detention in Guantanamo Bay and secret prisons in Europe? That's very topical again because the CIA has recently declassified information that reveals the vast scope and horror of those events beyond what we even thought we knew.

Unless there is a jurisdictional connection through harm to Canadians, the consistent Canadian approach in the past has always been to follow international law and multilateral approaches through the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council.

I want to end, because that leads me to the bigger problematic background to the crisis in Ukraine. It's really the main reason I wanted to have the opportunity, for which I'm grateful, to testify here today. It is in relation to the overall context in which we consider the Ukraine crisis.

I speak as someone who was very actively involved as a Canadian official during the Cold War at many multilateral and some bilateral tables. This is the new cold war, as it's being called, that is in many ways more dangerous than the original one.

Because the epicentre of the conflict is not Berlin or the third world, but directly on Russia's borders, this puts the urgency of progress on the Minsk protocol in very sharp relief. We have other fronts, and the possibility, with recent activities, of direct engagement between Russia and the United States in Syria. There is an unprecedented deterioration in Russia-U.S. relations. In the height of the Cold War, this was not the case.

There is the demonization of Russian President Putin in the U.S.A. in a way that was never seen during the Cold War. Commentators have noted that if this demonization had taken place during the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy would never have been able to take the steps he took to avert that crisis. Russiagate paralyzes Trump's ability to engage in any crisis negotiations with Russia.

The other aspect is that there's no anti-cold war media. During the original Cold War, there was a vigorous debate about the approach we should take with regard to Russia. There were those who wanted a hard line, and those who wanted a very different approach, and very often, Canada, of course, was taking the very different approach, as in the six-nation five-continent peace initiative by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in the height of the Cold War.

I end, regrettably, with a very interesting op-ed in The Globe and Mail today by former NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen. He was calling for Canada to play a kind of bridge-building role in support of the Minsk protocol and this discussion that's opened up on the kind of UN peacekeeping operation to help the OSCE monitor and verify the ceasefire. Regrettably, Bill S-226, if it passes, would effectively remove our ability to play that kind of bridging role, and it's really one that's needed very much.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Dr. Luciuk.

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, Department of Political Science, As an Individual]

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to address the Standing Committee on National Defence today regarding the crisis in Ukraine. Please note that I'm speaking as an individual rather than as a representative of the Royal Military College.

When I was asked to do this, I decided the best way to address the committee would be by sharing with you some observations and reflections I've made over the years on the situation in Ukraine. I didn't have time to translate those, but I have provided the booklet to the clerk, and the clerk assures me that it will be translated in due course.

I want to speak very briefly to those commentaries, and then I will let the committee decide whether I was prescient or not in what I observed over the years. At the end I will add some prescriptions to the committee, which I think will be helpful for Canada in coping with the ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Federation, which is something that's been going on now for three years.

I was in Crimea in July and August 2010. At the time, I noticed a large number of secessionist placards and billboards plastered everywhere throughout the Crimean region, so several years before the illegal seizure of Crimea by Russian troops, the area was already being prepared for the takeover by Moscow. In Kiev, then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, who is currently a citizen of the Russian Federation, was doing absolutely nothing about it.

When Euromaidan came in 2014, that revolution of dignity, it was in part a revolution aimed at toppling a man who had become very much the satrap of Moscow, a man who was endorsing widespread corruption. His own son Alexander was known as the “king of coal”, a dentist who became a multi-millionaire almost overnight. At the time, in the press here in Canada, I wondered when Ukraine would finally be free, when Ukraine would find its Moses, someone to lead the Ukrainian people to the promised land, which all of them at the time said would be Europe. I predicted that once they began that, they would be unstoppable. At the same time, I also wrote that the Kremlin project of restoring the Soviet empire was a humpty dumpty project not likely to succeed despite all the king's men and all the king's horses.

In March 2014, when Crimea was finally under occupation, I wrote about how President Yanukovych seemed to have forgotten the fact that on July 9—his birthday and mine—1997, Ukraine was given security assurances in return for giving up its nuclear weapons under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This was also a theme I touched on in November 1991 in The Globe and Mail with an article entitled “Moderation and neutrality—but hang on to the nuclear arms”, in which I argued that Ukraine should not give up its nuclear weapons because it would lose its independence, and its territorial sovereignty would be violated. At the time I remember being called a warmonger. I don't think I was.

Excuses: Putin, of course, has claimed that he invaded Ukraine because there was a Russian minority under threat there by Ukrainian fascists. No one has ever been able to find these fascists, and certainly when he sent his troops into Crimea, the only fascists present at the time were Russian Unity movement thugs who burned Jewish- and Ukrainian-language books on the streets of Crimea. Nothing like this had been seen in Europe since April 1933 when the Nazis, of course, did that.

Some Russians, of course, claim that they have some kind of responsibility to protect the Russian minorities that exist in the Baltic states, especially in Estonia and Latvia. However, if we're going to argue that the Estonian and Latvian states, both NATO allies, can be dismembered because there are Russian minorities there, what about the Russian Federation itself? Chechnya, for example, is 95% Chechen. Tatarstan is 53% Tatar. Kalmykia is 57% Buddhist. If Ukraine or other states need to be dismembered because of minority issues, surely the Russian Federation should follow suit.

The west, of course, has many excuses for doing nothing. In May 2014, I wrote about Ukraine's passion and about how Ukraine had been betrayed by the west in return for access to Russian gas, oil, and money, while the blood of innocent Ukrainians being shed by the KGB man in the Kremlin, who is now the president in perpetuity, was ignored. Ironically, the Russian Orthodox Church refers to Mr. Putin as a miracle of God. I can't imagine a more inappropriate title for that man.

In September 2014, I wrote about what Canada should do, which is to act against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine never invaded Russia; it was the other way around. No one was dying on Ukrainian lands until February 2014 following the invasion by the little green men. Ukraine continues to pay the price for having been naive and for having believed in western guarantees. I argued at that point, September 2014, that we should put Canadian troops on the ground to monitor the international border between Russia and Ukraine. Why would Mr. Putin object to that since he says he's for peace?

I note that my colleague just a moment ago referred to former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen's article in today's edition of The Globe and Mail, “Peace in Ukraine requires a 'carrot and stick' approach”. I recommend it to the committee. I read it this morning and thought maybe I shouldn't show up today, because essentially we share the same view. I don't believe the ex-ambassador does.

There has also been a strong campaign of Russian disinformation directed primarily against Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, and it has been echoed in some of the publications of the Rideau Institute, which has accused Ms. Freeland of being “Harperesque” in her treatment of the Russian Federation. I suggest that she's been acting on principle.

My own trip to Ukraine occurred in July of this year. I went to the front lines like my colleague Dr. Kuzio, and I went as a private citizen. I had the opportunity to speak with Canadian and American and other troops working in Yavoriv in western Ukraine and at Kamianets-Podilskyi , the mining centre. I went as part of a delegation headed by General Paul Wynnyk. Overwhelmingly, Canadian troops in Ukraine told me that their deployment there is beneficial for them. They told me that the deployment has allowed them to learn from Ukrainians, who are learning the hard way in front-line combat, what it is to deal with the Russians. The professionalism and pluck of Ukrainian front-line troopers was quite amazing to see.

There's a great deal of name-calling going on and some of it is kind of funny. I wrote about this. But the fact is that what Ukraine really needs today is defensive weapons to counter the offensive weapons the Russian Federation has already deployed against them. I believe that if given that kind of support, Ukrainians will win what I describe as a just war that has become a war of independence.

The last article I wrote about this—and I'm sorry I can't give it to you today—was published in several newspapers including The Jerusalem Post. It was about the death of a 20-year-old volunteer on the front lines. His real name was Maxim; his pseudonym was Okun. I met him on the 18th of July on the front line in Donetsk , and he died on the 19th in exactly the same spot where I took his last photograph, which is in the document I produced. As he told me before he died, he died defending Ukraine against the invading foe, and he spoke in Russian.

What are my prescriptions? My prescriptions are quite simple and fairly obvious. I believe we should maintain the presence of Canadian troops in Ukraine and in the Baltic states aiding our NATO allies and aiding Ukraine for training purposes. I believe we should maintain or perhaps increase the economic sanctions we have against those responsible for the current war in Ukraine. I think we need to continue to refuse to recognize the illegal military occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. I think we need a call for the withdrawal of all Russian armed forces from the occupied portions of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions. We need to provide defensive weapons to Ukraine to counter the offensive equipment the Russian Federation has already deployed. We need to continue to share with Ukraine whatever political or military intelligence we can in order to allow Ukraine to continue with its defensive war against the Russian Federation.

Finally, after we withdraw the Russian forces from Luhansk and Donetsk, which Mr. Putin has said he wants to do, we need to deploy Canadian peacemakers on the international border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine to prevent further incursions of Russian armed forces into the territory of Ukraine and to stop Russia's resupply of criminal and terrorist elements that may remain active on Ukrainian lands after the Russian forces have been withdrawn.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to our first round of questions. Mr. Robillard, you have the floor.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for Mr. Luciuk.

What types of tactics have pro-Russian separatist groups used against Ukraine's armed forces in the Donbass region?

Which components of the Minsk I and Minsk II peace agreements have Russia and pro-Russian separatist groups in Ukraine not implemented? Why have they not been implemented?

What is Russia's long-term objective in the Donbass region?

To what extent are Russia's actions in the Donbass region part of broader ambitions for territorial expansion?

In short, what lessons have been learned from the conflict in Ukraine to date?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I missed the first part of the question, but essentially my understanding of the so-called pro-Russian groups in Ukraine, particularly in Donetsk and Luhansk, is that much of this has been fabricated by the Russian Federation; that is, there were legitimate minority language issues that needed to be addressed. Some were addressed and some were not. That is clearly an issue that Ukraine needs to deal with in the future. There was no persecution of Russian speakers anywhere in Ukraine. In fact, Russian speakers enjoyed widespread freedoms, the same as any other Ukrainian citizen.

The invasion of Ukrainian lands by the Russian Federation was, in my view, an attempt to destabilize Ukraine, where the popular national will was for a turn toward Europe; where that was blocked by President Yanukovych, leading to some of the violence you saw in the Euromaidan, and leading then to the invasion of portions of Ukraine, including the occupation of Crimea; where a referendum was then staged under military occupation, the results of which no country in the world accepts—except, of course, the Russian Federation. There was subsequently the illegal annexation of Crimea into the Russian Federation, which again is something that no western country accepts.

As for the purpose of this, I agree in part with my colleague Dr. Kuzio. He outlined five theories, or views, on the war in Ukraine. I think a combination of all of those is at play, but certainly one of the major issues is this unwillingness on the part of many Russians, including Mr. Putin, of course, at the top, to give up the archaic notion that somehow Ukrainians and Russians are one people, “people of one blood”, as they would say. This is a fantasy concocted by Moscow many centuries ago and which has been perpetuated through the Soviet period and now in the post-Soviet period. The shock many Russians felt in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine declared its independence, and the notion that Ukraine might be a legitimate state in Europe, is something that many have not been able to cope with.

Putin, on the other hand, by his aggressive measures directed against Ukraine, has perhaps rallied his own nation but certainly has also rallied Ukraine. I noticed among Russian-speaking Ukrainians not only an intense patriotism but a certain and positive desire to ensure that all Russian invaders are driven from their lands. So, Putin, ironically it has sometimes been claimed has almost created the modern Ukraine in this war of independence. As for the long-term goals to destabilize Ukraine to keep a large and potentially prosperous country out of the European Union and keep the Russian imperial project alive, and that is that humpty dumpty project I referred to.... Where I will disagree with Dr. Kuzio is I don't think the Russian project is succeeding; in fact, I'm fairly sure it will fail, although at great cost.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

What is the probability that Ukraine can reform its Ministry of Defence by the end of 2018, and achieve full military interoperability with NATO members by 2020? Is the target date of 2020 for Ukraine's NATO membership feasible?

What has been Russia's reaction to NATO's support and involvement in reform efforts in Ukraine?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I know from personal observation that there is a great interest in joining NATO. I know that the professionalism of the Ukrainian front-line troops and of the National Guard of Ukraine, which in some ways is better equipped, even, than the front-line troops, is such that they are on par with western standards.

The degree of interoperability is a slightly different question, and that is something that is being worked on, but I don't believe it would be ready by 2018 from what I saw. That said, the Ukrainian military is more than capable of handling its own man for man, as I saw on the front lines. The professionals who are there are very competent and capable and are learning lessons fast. They told me—and I can only refer to what I was told by Ukrainian Spetsnaz troops and military intelligence troops—that against their equivalents in the Russian Federation it's man for man. Against Russian conscripts they will win the war.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's your time.

Mr. Yurdiga, you have the floor.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for participating in our study, which is very heart-wrenching for many of us who are of Ukrainian descent.

A lot of things have happened since 2014, but I understand that Ukraine and Russia have opposed UN peacekeeping. Can you comment on both?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I am going to turn to Ambassador Mason and Dr. Kuzio to help with this.

My understanding is that both the Russian Federation and Ukraine were originally opposed, but in recent months, I believe, Ukraine has called for international peacekeeping troops on the international border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, not on the line of separation. Putting peacekeepers or observers on the line of separation might suggest to some that this is the legitimate border, when it's actually a territory under occupation, a separation line that I literally stood beside and was nearly killed on. This would be recognizing somehow an illegitimately acquired territory.

The issue, and I believe this was referred to in the Globe and Mail article today, is how to define where these peacekeepers or observers would go. From the Ukrainian point of view, they should go on the original international boundary, a boundary, by the way, that the Russian Federation agreed would be inviolate when it supported the Minsk accords and the Budapest agreements. That was supposed to be the border. The territory of Ukraine was supposed to be sovereign. Crimea was occupied—the first violation of sovereignty—and now Donetsk and Luhansk. I think the Ukrainian position is, “We'll go back to what it was like before the war, and then we'll talk.” The Russian position, obviously, is, “We've acquired this territory.”

I can also add one point. Many of the people from the other side—I'll call it occupied Donetsk and Luhansk—travel across the border every day. It's almost bizarre to meet these people at the equivalent of Starbucks, 50 metres behind the lines. You're talking and having a coffee, and you're asking what it's like on the other side.

There has been very little reconstruction, very little attempt to repair the damage done by both sides during the war. As a result, the people on the other side, in occupied territory, are truly suffering—there is no doubt about it—whereas the people on the Ukrainian side don't seem to be, other than right along the line of demarcation. Back of that line, life goes on quite normally. I visited schools, churches, and private homes, and I saw people living their lives, as best they could with the understanding that occasionally artillery rounds come over.

I think both sides have called for peace; both sides have called for observers; both sides have called for some kind of international force. It's just a difference of where they go. I believe that the former secretary general said exactly the same thing.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to hear from Mr. Kuzio on that topic.

[Dr. Taras Kuzio]

Going back to the question that was raised about Minsk—because this is all related to Minsk as well—in my power point slides, which I sent this morning and which I think the committee has, the second-last slide is all about Minsk. When people say there's no alternative to Minsk, the problem is that nothing of Minsk has been implemented, and Russia, the west, and Ukraine have very different ideas of the steps that need to be taken.

The Russian proposal is to go first with political changes/political reforms and then with security. The west and Ukraine say security first, and then political reforms. That's because Russia doesn't want to incorporate the Donbass of eastern Ukraine into Russia. It wants to use this region as a leverage point vis-à-vis Kiev to give it some kind of veto power over Ukraine's domestic and foreign policy in a kind of balkanization of Ukraine.

When you say there's no alternative to Minsk, well, nothing had been implemented on Minsk. Between Minsk I and Minsk II, i.e., 2014 to 2015, Putin, during this immense process, built up the various militia groups into one of Europe's largest armies. Today, the separatists, or Russian proxy forces, number 35,000. With Russian forces of 5,000, that's 40,000. That's bigger than half of the armies in NATO.

The problem with the peacekeeping operation is that in Ukraine there's zero trust, not surprisingly, with Putin. It's not just because of what's happened in Ukraine; it's also because of—let's remember—Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and elsewhere in the former U.S.S.R. Russia has been doing this kind of thing in the past, where it's created a conflict and frozen it in its favour with its own peacekeeping forces. Ukraine would never accept Russian soldiers as part of that peacekeeping force. As Dr. Luciuk said, the peacekeepers should be on the Ukraine-Russia border, not on the ceasefire line.

The most important goal for Putin here in proposing this is to be seen as a peacemaker and therefore to get Europe to drop its sanctions against Russia. That's his goal. We shouldn't allow him to get away with this, because he has no real interest in peace.

Thank you.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I've had many conversations with a number of people. There's a sentiment out there that if the Ukrainian army had been more heavily equipped and had had more of a presence in Crimea prior to the 2014 invasion, this crisis would have been averted. Could I have a comment on that?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

I think the Ukrainian army and military were gutted during the Yanukovych regime and as a result were not prepared to deal with the crisis when it occurred, particularly in the NCO ranks. Also, then, at the most senior levels of the military, there was a large number of leftovers from the Soviet period, who have hobbled the efforts of the younger generation of officers to do their jobs.

What I heard at the colonel level, and sometimes even at the lower major-general level, is that they're all very competent. They're all very capable of taking on the Russian army, but they're not supported from above by the hangovers, and they don't have a sufficient NCO cadre to transmit their orders going down. That's a big problem, and they admit it.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Garrison.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for appearing today.

I want to focus on the diametrically opposed testimony of Mr. Luciuk and Ambassador Mason with regard to supplying weapons to Ukraine at this time. I guess there are two aspects to this. One is what the impact would be on the conflict. The other is that there have been some allegations that Ukraine has already been involved in some less than savoury arms deals with other partners: allegations that they may have provided missile parts to North Korea and allegations that they have provided weapons to states in Africa that are behind arms blockades.

I will start with Mr. Luciuk and then go to Ambassador Mason. Can you comment on the immediate impact of inserting more weapons into the conflict, and second, on the end use of possible exports?

[Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk]

The immediate impact would be making the Ukrainian military more capable, more competent, of defeating the invader; it's as simple as that. I suppose, frankly, there would be more Russian deaths. That's what war is.

Ukraine has corruption problems in the military and in civil life. There's no denying that, but it's improving. It's certainly far less corrupt than the Russian Federation. Mr. Putin is a billionaire. How do you become a billionaire on the salary of an ex-KGB man and a man who is president in perpetuity of the Russian Federation? Okay, he makes a good salary, but how does he become a billionaire? So, talk about corruption.

As for the weaponry, a story was circulated...I think it's part of a disinformation campaign against Ukraine. There's no evidence that Ukraine provided nuclear weapon support of any kind to North Korea. Ukraine has a very large armaments industry—that's very true—and some of the front-line troops were complaining about that. Why is stuff made in Ukraine being sold on international markets? But that's part of the process. Governments everywhere sell weaponry. Canada does that. We've sold weaponry to Saudi Arabia, which Madam Ambassador has bemoaned. The reality is all countries tend to do that. If Ukrainians have done it, and I don't know the specifics of that, it's unfortunate, but it's particularly unfortunate for the front-line troops who could use that armament.

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

Ambassador Mason.

[Peggy Mason]

Thank you very much.

I just want to reference the statement about no alternatives in the Minsk agreement, and just note that I was quoting the Ukrainian minister of defence, who stated that in May, and also President Putin and Angela Merkel, who said there is no alternative to the Minsk agreement.

On the second point, the impact on the conflict, there's been a lot of careful study of this, and I would point to very respected independent expertise in the international crisis group. They have been extremely active in analyzing this conflict. I think anyone reading it would see that they have been very impartial and given criticism where criticism is due. They go back and forth, and they did a huge number of interviews with various military advisers and diplomats as to what the impact on the ground would be, and canvassed all the arguments. They came out with the view that because the dynamic on the ground is that each side must respond to a perceived military action by the other—and we're talking defensive weapons here and that's all the former NATO secretary general recommended. He said they would give no really meaningful military advantage, but they would be seen as a military step. Therefore, the separatist forces would respond and then we would have an impact on escalation, which would be exactly the wrong direction than the one we want to go in.

I also want to come back to the comment that you couldn't have peacekeepers on the line of separation, which of course is set out in the Minsk agreement, signed by all sides, because that would somehow legitimize it more than the Minsk agreement does. That just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the peacekeepers are supposed to be doing. Of course, I hasten to add that this is not the only place they need to be, but if they're going to move from a ceasefire to a more meaningful agreement, then they have to be able to make sure they can verify that everyone is living up to the Minsk agreement. That means they have to be where the forces are. This is in fact what the OSCE is supposed to be doing, and everyone has agreed to that, but they just don't have the capacity to protect themselves while doing it. That's why this whole proposal about the UN peacekeeping operations is so ingenious, because it is to provide the security and protection so the OSCE monitors can do their job.

I want to come back on a point that our other witness said about not wanting to get into a situation of frozen conflicts, and I could not agree more. No one, I think, is suggesting, or no one should be suggesting, that Russian forces would be involved in this at all. That's why, of course, I say there couldn't also be Canadian forces because a proper UN peacekeeping mission has impartial forces. I think we have learned a lot from the frozen conflicts, and I think that's what we're trying to avoid here.

Thank you.

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

Ambassador Mason, you said that Canada couldn't play the role of peacekeepers. We are contributing to the OSCE mission, and Canada, as we learned, has not fulfilled its full commitment to provide observers.

Do you believe our position would allow us to contribute additional materials to the monitoring mission?