National Defence Committee on April 21st, 2023

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes.

[Dr. Jack Watling]

The issue there is that while we have focused very directly on our own ecosystem and a lot of our information affects English language sources or European media and that ecosystem, the Russians are extremely active across Africa and South America. If you go onto elite WhatsApp groups between MPs and that kind of thing, in those countries you will very quickly observe a lot of translated Russian material that is in circulation among those groups, because there simply isn't an alternative narrative that is being actively promoted.

In Canada, given that you have significant numbers of personnel with both information warfare expertise and French language skills, there are audiences that have much more capacity to understand how the Russians are operating in those environments. Engage and counter. Make sure that there is an alternative narrative present.

It's partly about appreciating that from Russia's point of view, this is a global effort.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Colleagues, we have 15 minutes of time left and 25 minutes' worth of questions. It doesn't work, so we're down to rounds of three minutes. It's three, three, one, one, three and three.

With that, Ms. Gallant, you have three minutes, please.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

What's the greatest vulnerability that Russia faces that could perhaps be exploited?

[Dr. Jack Watling]

It's the low morale and poor training quality of its soldiers. Ultimately, Russia lacks leverage, because it is losing ground and losing people on the battlefield. That is the thing that we have to make sure continues. We cannot let them have a ceasefire when they could put their mobilized troops through deliberate training and therefore improve their capabilities. We also cannot let them start to grind away at the Ukrainians in traditional fighting, because the Ukrainians lack the firepower to hold them back.

That is the critical point of leverage we have that will always keep the Russians on their back foot.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

What capabilities do you see as being vital to ensuring that Ukraine is victorious in the war that haven't been provided to Ukraine yet?

[Dr. Jack Watling]

It's boring, but there are hundreds and hundreds of different, very small spare parts for which the Ukrainians don't have the intellectual property rights and therefore the CAD drawings to be able to produce them. They don't know the heat treatment or the tolerances of a lot of their Soviet legacy equipment that is breaking down. Equipment that's being provided by the international community is also breaking down.

At the moment, Ukrainian commanders are having to decide between sending a howitzer back to Poland and not knowing when it's going to come back to them, and therefore losing the capability completely, or continuing to operate it even though part of it is damaged, which then leads to the system becoming broken in a much more serious way.

Working through that complex maintenance and support process for the equipment we have already provided, as well as ammunition and barrels, is the very kind of underappreciated aspect that we are struggling to follow through on.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Is there a legislative instrument that could be put forth to be able to mobilize production using the civilian industrial complex more quickly than we are?

[Dr. Jack Watling]

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm certainly not a lawyer in Canada, so I'm afraid.... I'm a military analyst. I don't know, but such a law would probably be quite useful.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

There's not a policy you see that other countries have that we don't—some sort of standing order to flip the switch, so to speak, and have the civilian industries—

[Dr. Jack Watling]

The U.S. has such legislation to enable the President to requisition industry and direct it to produce war materials, yes.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay, I'm done. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Fisher, you have three minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Doctor, for being here. It's absolutely fascinating testimony. I hate the fact that I have only three minutes, so I'm going to speak really quickly and get my preamble done as soon as I can and leave the time for you to give your amazing answers.

In early days, we heard about this in the news. It was on the news 24-7 in the early days of the war, and we're not seeing that as much now.

I think the world was surprised. I was surprised. I think Canadians were surprised at the early successes that the Ukrainians had. I think we believed the hype that the big bear would come in and take right over, and it would be three or four days. Someone in your position probably didn't believe that, but I think we were surprised and impressed.

Now it's not on the news 24-7. We're not seeing it every single day, so I thought maybe someone with your expertise would be able to fill us in on some of the latest developments, the conclusions you can draw from some of these latest developments and how you see the conflict developing in the next few months.

[Dr. Jack Watling]

The next few months are going to be absolutely critical, because if the Ukrainians are able to get the Russians moving backward, the Russian command and control system is likely to make that a very chaotic process. The headquarters are 120 kilometres from the front. If that can happen, then we might start seeing quite a rapid breakdown of the Russian defensive positions.

Conversely, if the Ukrainians are not able to breach those obstacle belts that the Russians are building and they lose or suffer attrition in the units that have the skills to do opposed obstacle breaching, this could become a very protracted, attritional fight.

We need to make sure that it goes one way rather than the other, but which way it goes will probably determine the trajectory of the war. If it becomes protracted, it becomes increasingly focused on infantry, and Russia can regenerate those units, whereas Ukraine will increasingly need a qualitative edge to combat Russian mass.

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

What are your thoughts, then—and I only have about 45 seconds—on China as a friend and an ally to Russia and whether they're actually providing anything or willing to provide anything, or in the future months may consider providing something?

[Dr. Jack Watling]

China offered to provide microelectronics and other components and machine tooling for Russian industry in the very early days of the war. They've also been very important in providing finance, although they extract a lot of concessions for that. They also provide advice and engage with the Russian military in that way. There's ongoing joint training, I believe.

What we haven't yet seen is whether the Chinese will set up production in Russia, building factories in Russia and moving personnel and technicians to run them. That is a major risk. I think that is much more likely than directly supplying munitions, because the Chinese want to appear to be uninvolved. Nonetheless, their position is supportive of Russia, even if it's at arm's length.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for one minute.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As we know, Ukrainian grain destined for foreign countries has been transiting through the European Union since the traditional export route through the Black Sea was blocked by the Russian invasion. One can imagine that this has had an impact on delivery times, for example, as well as costs.

Russia is threatening to suspend the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports if the west does not lift its restrictions on the Russian agricultural sector. If so, what kind of impact might this have on countries that receive this grain, including Canada?

[Dr. Jack Watling]

I think the most significant effect would be in countries like Lebanon, Yemen and Egypt, where those grains have been absolutely critical for the food security of the local population. That is also one of the reasons the Russians are cautious, I think, or prepared to negotiate on this particular issue, because if they can frame starvation or malnutrition in those countries as being caused by NATO, that is something they are potentially willing to bring about.

If it is instead perceived in those countries as something that is being caused by the Russian blockade of Ukraine, that undermines their relationship with countries with which, in the case of Egypt, they have much more co-operation than others. In the case of Syria, they are actually a security guarantor to the Assad government.

I think that's an area where there is plenty of scope for diplomacy and in which we have some leverage, but it would be a humanitarian tragedy.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm sorry to keep cutting you off.

Madam Mathyssen, you have one minute.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Actually, I want to just build off one of the questions Ms. Gallant previously asked you. She asked about Russia's biggest weakness, and your response was about training, morale and so on. We've heard from others that the biggest weakness is the fact that they're a dictatorship and that the use of sanctions against oligarchs is key in that situation.

Although you said it was not the biggest, would you agree that this is effective? ALso, are Canada and the world using sanctions effectively? Are there ways we can better do that?

[Dr. Jack Watling]

The sanctions are fine. We're not very proactive at actually shutting down these businesses. A number of times I've seen an oligarch get sanctioned and set up a front company that takes on the assets. They then have a non-public agreement with someone to hold it in their name, and they are able to essentially continue doing their business. This is really concerning.

We have a big project here that tracks the smuggling of military-grade equipment out of our countries to Russia, and in the last few months of last year, we saw month-on-month increases [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I think Dr. Watling just froze. It's either that or he's very steady.

He's gone. The Russians....

He knew that Mr. Bezan was going to ask a really sharp question, and that's why he left.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Could we do our committee business part? Then we can go back.