Canada to send 40 combat engineers to Poland to train Ukrainian troops as part of commitment to increase military aid to Ukraine

     Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand and her Polish counterpart Mariusz Blaszczak            photo:reuters

As part of its commitment to boosting military assistance to Ukraine, Canada announced on Tuesday that it will deploy 40 more combat engineers to bolster Polish efforts to train Ukrainian soldiers.

Since 2015, the Canadian Armed Forces have educated more than 33,000 Ukrainian security and military personnel, while several components of the training programme have been put on hold since February.

Anita Anand, Canada's defence minister, said at a news conference in Warsaw that her country would send about 40 combat engineers to Poland in the coming weeks to assist in the training of Ukrainian sappers in engineer reconnaissance, explosives, mining, and de-mining. 

Additionally, Canadian forces have assisted the Polish military and administration in assisting refugee processing facilities and training programmes that are situated in the United Kingdom.

The additional instruction, according to Anand, "will supplement Canadian training of new Ukrainian recruits in the United Kingdom, and Canadian training of Ukrainian personnel on the use of the M777 howitzers that we gave to Ukraine."

In its most extensive aerial assaults since the war's beginning in February, Russia launched cruise missiles into Ukrainian cities on Monday, carrying out what the US called "horrific strikes" that killed civilians and disrupted power supply.

At a later meeting, Anand addressed the media and said, "Canada vehemently condemns those savage strikes against civilian targets and infrastructure." "Those attacks amount to war crimes."

Russia refers to its efforts in Ukraine as a "special operation," which it claims are not intended to seize land but rather to undermine its southern neighbor's military prowess and catch nationalists it deems to be a threat. It has denied striking civilians on purpose.