National Defence committee  Well, they have no way of accessing that region, because those are occupied territories. There are arguably 40,000 troops there in the occupied territories, controlling those territories. There is no access, whether by Ukrainian NGOs or Ukrainian government officials, to actually

National Defence committee  Access to Internet, yes; access to media, no. Access to Ukrainian media is almost non-existent in the occupied territories, and hence, the disinformation campaign is very intense in that region.

National Defence committee  It's simple but very difficult. The simple way is to force Russia's hand to remove their military, their equipment, and their financing of the—quote, unquote—“separatists”, because at the end of the day, as I mentioned at the very beginning, there was never a separatist movement.

National Defence committee  No, they're very congruent, in order to force Russia's hand to accept a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine, to accept a peacekeeping mission that doesn't freeze the conflict. Vladimir Putin several weeks ago proposed a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine on the contact line, on the conf

National Defence committee  This is a very important question, because the whole question about the information war is very acute. We have not only active military aggression happening in Ukraine but also economic aggression happening against Ukraine by the Russian Federation. Perhaps even more dramatic and

National Defence committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, it's an honour for me as the national president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to appear today before the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. I thank the committee for allowing me the opportunity to offer testimony today on this to