We're also grateful for the support communicated to our Canadian Armed Forces members, and I will be very happy to pass that on.
As I indicated in my opening remarks, initially early in the pandemic, as we tried to learn about the disease that was confronting us and Canadians and the world, frankly, the chief of the defence staff made a decision to temporarily contract the global posture of the Canadian Armed Forces.
You specifically asked about our mission in Latvia, which is known as Operation Reassurance. As you know, we have deployed what we call an enhanced forward presence battle group.
Interestingly, as the chief of the defence staff looked at having to contract the global posture, given the situation in Latvia, our confidence, based on the chief of the defence staff's advice that he was getting from his medical advisers, was that we could make a determination that Canada would be able to continue its contribution relatively unimpeded in Latvia. Throughout this crisis, the CAF support to the enhanced forward presence battle group has continued, while, of course, respecting some of the public health measures in place locally in Latvia.
We had to contract the force a little more restrictively in other places like Iraq, for example, where the COVID situation was not under control. Other factors in Iraq, such as the geopolitical and security situation, also forced us to reassess our posture in the region.
Ukraine I would mention as well, specifically as one of the missions that required us to contract the force a little more, again because of the uncontrolled transmission of COVID-19 and the challenges that country is having.
In all cases where it's been possible, we've reinvigorated our collaboration, operations and training in support of our allies.