To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will clarify the statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on 18 September 2017 that Canada and the UK will continue to partner in Ukraine to support Defence reform and institutional capacity building.
This answer is the replacement for a previous holding answer.
Answered on
13 December 2017
The UK and Canada, as well as other partner nations, are working closely together, providing advice on strategic defence reform in Ukraine through our respective representatives on the Defence Reform Advisory Board. The UK and Canadian representatives have developed a particularly effective working relationship and are currently pursuing initiatives that could lead to even closer co-operation and co-ordination.
Alongside this, the UK and Canada have both had military training missions supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces in-country since 2015 and, as the Prime Minister announced in Ottawa, we have agreed with the Canadians to conduct joint training of the UAF from the beginning of 2018, focusing on capabilities including joint reconnaissance, counter-sniper and military policing. This will be complementary to the wider range of defensive, non-escalatory military training delivered by the UK through Operational ORBITAL.