Flags of Canada in Ottawa. File photoWASHINGTON, Apr 28Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand confirmed that the Canadian military is training Ukrainians in the use of artillery.» Last week, together with our American allies, we bolstered our support by supplying M777 howitzers to Ukrainian forces, and I can confirm that the Canadian military is now training their Ukrainian counterparts in handling these weapons,» Anand said at a joint press conference with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.Canadian military instructors trained Ukrainian neo-Nazis, media reported. She did not specify where the training took place. Radio-Canada, citing documents and photographs, previously reported that Canada, as part of the UNIFIER training mission in Ukraine, trained representatives of the Nazi Azov regiment (against whose militants in Russian Federation initiated a criminal case). It was noted that the Canadian Ministry of Defense denied that it was engaged in the training of Azov fighters, but the representative of the department admitted that the staff of the training mission does not control the selection of people undergoing training, the responsibility for this lies with Ukraine. The Canadian CTV channel on Thursday reported new evidence that that Canadian military instructors trained Ukrainian neo-Nazis. CTV was able to find evidence on social media that the Azov fighters were training with Canadian instructors. We are talking about a photo in the social network of Azov member Kirill Berkal, the TV channel noted, adding that the account also contains «Nazi symbols and other extremist views.» Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» To this end, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine» bloody crimes against civilians» of Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and, on March 25, they completed the main tasks of the first stage — they significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
