Troops prepare to leave for Ukraine amid uncertainty over mission’s future

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has claimed close to 10,000 lives since April 2014, and left tens of thousands without homes and struggling to survive.

But Canada’s training mission is set to expire at the end of March, and in spite of public appeals from the Ukrainian government, the Liberal government has not decided whether to extend it.

Despite the uncertainty, about 200 soldiers from Lord Strathcona’s Horse are set to leave for Ukraine at the beginning of March — even if it means they only end up staying for a month.

“We are prepared right now to send the next rotation of troops from western Canada to the Ukraine to follow on with the tasks that the previous rotation has been doing,” said Brig.-Gen. Simon Hetherington, commander of the 3rd Canadian Division, under which the unit falls.

The Edmonton-based soldiers will relieve counterparts from 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, based out of Shilo, Man., who have been on the ground training Ukrainian forces near the city of Lviv since August.

Meanwhile, 1 PPCLI, which is also based out of Edmonton and falls under Hetherington’s command, will be providing the majority of troops for the start of Canada’s mission in Latvia, which is expected to ramp up in the coming months before becoming fully operational in the summer.

Canada has committed to send about 450 troops to lead a multinational NATO force in the Baltic state, which is intended to deter any potential Russian aggression in the region.

Hetherington described the Latvia mission as “a bit of back to the future” since it will be Canada’s largest deployment to Europe since the end of the Cold War.

The Canadians will be joined in Latvia by counterparts from Italy, Spain, Poland, Albania and Slovenia, who Hetherington said will all work hand-in-hand with the Latvians on a daily basis.

“The Latvians will be our peers,” he said. “This is not building an army. We are not training them.”

With 3rd Division also providing about 150 soldiers to Canada’s mission in Iraq, the question remains how the government plans to find another 600 troops to send on a major peacekeeping mission in Africa.

Hetherington acknowledged that with Ukraine, Latvia and Iraq on his plate, he is “rounds complete,” meaning he doesn’t have much more to spare.

But he was confident the military would be able to find enough troops from other places to be able to participate in a peacekeeping mission, if and when the government pulls the trigger.

“It will depend on the task,” Hetherington said.

“If push comes to shove, we can all get out the door and do what we need to do tomorrow.… If you look back to the Afghan days where at any one time we could have had upwards of 3,500, and we kept going through that.”

— Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version misidentified the units involved in the missions

by Canadian Press

Troops prepare to leave for Ukraine amid uncertainty over mission’s future

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