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For months after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion a year ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has used a standard message while being accused of being slow, or doing too little, in its efforts to help Ukraine.
Did we ever mention that Canada trains over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers?
The message is a talking point and a deflection. It ran across almost every line of media response and response in Ottawa during those months, as the world was gripped by the dramatic Ukrainian military presence outside the capital Kyiv and in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city.
CBC News has been on the ground about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since its inception. Do you want to know about his experience there? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca. Our reporter will answer your questions as we approach our one-year anniversary.
At the time, many world leaders and seasoned military, defense and geopolitical observers expected Ukraine’s defenses to collapse quickly in the face of Russia’s superior manpower, firepower and air power. The experts were soon caught by the determination and professionalism of the Ukrainian military, and by early victories against brutal antagonists.
There are many reasons that explain Ukrainian life. They begin with the deep anger that has united Ukrainians – a visceral anger that only grows with each new atrocity, each indiscriminate missile strike that takes innocent lives.
The Russian army itself is another reason. With ill-prepared soldiers, uncoordinated units, appalling logistics and a habit of combining self-confidence with a lack of competence, Russian Army commanders have squandered the war to a level as astonishing as the Ukrainian performance.
But most military commanders will tell you that battles are won and lost on the training ground – in the mindset instilled in soldiers by that training.
That’s where Canada and its allies come in.
CBC News wants to know how much of a difference Canada’s much-hyped military training mission has made to Ukraine’s ability to survive in the past year. We spoke to Ukrainian and Canadian soldiers
In the seven years leading up to last year’s invasion, hundreds of Canadian soldiers were sent to western Ukraine to train a battle-tested army holding back Russian-backed proxy forces in the eastern Donbas region.
Trainees are put through advanced courses on all aspects of combat, from marksmanship and examining trapped vehicles to medical care and battlefield evacuation.
Canadian Brig.-Gen. Tim Arsenault ruled one of the early rotations of coaches. He vividly remembers the exciting experience of seeing the first Ukrainian troops arriving directly from the eastern front at the training center in Yavoriv, near the Polish border.
“The most that will stay with me is just to watch the first battalion come from Donbas, and see the state of the soldiers, who are very tired,” said Arsenault.
“I really hit home at that time, how it affects Ukrainians … on a basic, you know, moral level, and the fact that they are almost violated to have to fight with one neighbor who speaks the same language as them.”
Arsenault said he encountered “a certain level of reticence” among Ukrainians, all of whom have combat experience. Colonel Sergeii Maltsev of the Ukrainian National Guard said his soldiers were hesitant at first.
“I think some people are skeptical,” Maltsev told CBC News in a recent interview in Kyiv.
“Maybe it’s a fear of change? Maybe because they don’t know at the beginning what they will give as a final result.”
Ultimately, Canadian training makes two important contributions to Ukraine’s defense, said Maltsev, a short, tough, wiry soldier who has been fighting Russia since its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The first was the combat medical training provided in the final stages of Operation Unifier, the Canadian name for the training mission.
The training saved many lives, Maltsev said. That view is supported by a Ukrainian soldier CBC News recently interviewed outside Bakhmut, the focal point of Russia’s winter offensive.
Canadian soldiers have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in Western military tactics. Two Canadians who took part in the exercise and Ukrainians on the front lines told the CBC’s David Common how it helped Ukraine survive for so long.
A second critical contribution was the training of sergeants and non-commissioned officers – the middle-level command layer that made Ukrainian units faster than the enemy.
“Before, already [an] old-Soviet-type approach,” said Maltsev, referring to the top-down command structure that discourages troops from taking the initiative without orders.
“We are improving the role of the sergeant in our military, and with your help, with the help of Canada, we are developing a sergeant training program … and now the sergeant can effectively help, help the officers and even command a small unit. , without the help or assistance of the officer. Being able to lead. Being able to take decisions directly on the battlefield, without consulting higher ranks.”
Lt.-Col. Melanie Lake was one of the last Canadian training commanders to work with the Ukrainians before the outbreak of hostilities. They finish the tour in the fall of 2021.
Changing the mindset of Ukrainians away from the old Soviet approach of waiting for orders is an uphill battle, he said.
“In the old Soviet system, there was a lot of punishment culture,” he said. “So you have to eliminate the risk-aversion that comes from that punishment culture, … the aversion to delegating authority, empowering subordinates.”
Nothing showed Russia’s lack of military mentality better, he said, than the fate of a 65-kilometer-long convoy in Kyiv at the start of 2022 – before it stopped dead and was separated by the Ukrainian resistance. .
“No one can make a decision,” Lake said. “You have seniors [Russian] the general advanced, advanced greatly and was arrested because he was the only one with the power to make decisions.
“And you see the contrast of small teams of Ukrainians who use anti-armor weapons, or choose public executions … in small teams that allow them to see the initiative.”
Volodymyr is a lieutenant serving with an artillery unit of the Ukrainian National Guard near Bakhmut; CBC News is identifying him only by his first name, for his protection. He said that a victory like ending the convoy outside Kyiv made it possible for the Ukrainians to win.
“At the beginning of this war, there were many Ukrainian defense specialists who said that there was a large Soviet army against, for example, [a] the Soviet army was small,” he said. “But you see what happened.”
Another Canadian training commander, Col. Kris Reeves, now admits that when Moscow launches a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, he fears Ukraine will be bulldozed.
“February 24th – I’ve told my wife this – for me, that was the 911 moment,” Reeves told CBC News in Ottawa.
“I had this stone in my stomach, the pit of my gut…thinking everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve worked to help him, is going to disappear.”
It is possible that Canadian military training will have a deeper legacy in post-war Ukraine.
CBC News spoke to a senior Ukrainian lieutenant in charge of a mortar battery – a young woman in the army who still experiences gender stereotypes. Krystyna “Kudriava” (nom-de-guerre, meaning “curly hair”) said she met Lake in her capacity as a Canadian in charge of a training mission in early 2021 – and was inspired to find a female soldier commander.
“Meeting Col. Melanie Lake was a very important event for me,” he said. “And obviously, after hearing that the commander of Operation Unifier Canada was coming and that she was a woman, I was very interested in communicating with her to share my experience, to hear her story.
“And to my surprise, he was very open about his personality.”
The two became close. Lake gives Krystyna the commander’s coin and in return she receives a bracelet made of bullets.
When asked if he was sure he would return to Ukraine eventually for the August 24 independence day celebrations, Lake did not hesitate.
“Absolutely. I don’t doubt it. I don’t doubt it.”
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