this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024

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-10

QUESTION - Is Canada sending our soldiers to Poland or Ukraine? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm in Ontario and this past week I got a couple of messages from family and friends in southern Ontario that their sons/nephews/friends who are in the army are going to be sent to either Poland or Ukraine in the next few months.

It's really upset myself and my family because I have relatives who were war veterans who either died or were traumatized by war (in WWII and WWI). Most of my family and circle of friends all agree .... no one in Canada should be sent to any war / conflict / fight / aggression / whatever you want to call it in Europe.

One of them said that they were going to be deployed to Poland but then that recently got changed to Ukraine. The messages about this one soldier came from a mother who is a friend of mine. She said that her son told her that it would be a combat role for him.

I am not certain if the young son is making up stories for his mother (as they have a difficult relationship). I'm partly wondering if the young guy is doing some strange path of going to Ukraine just to fight in whatever capacity (whether as a Canadian soldier or just a plain mercenary) just because he wants to.

So after hearing two separate families suggesting that they thought their relative was going to be sent to Poland or Ukraine in the next few months ... is Canada sending ... or going to send troops to Poland or Ukraine? Or is this something that their families have to worry about because some dumb kid is wanting to join a war on his own?

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[–] sbv 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

A handful of Canadian troops are stationed in Poland and the Ukraine. They're doing support/training, so I doubt combat is planned:

Over 300 CAF personnel are currently deployed on Op UNIFIER.

Since August 2022, approx. 180 CAF have been deployed to the UK to support the training of Ukrainian recruits.

Since October 2022, Canada has deployed approximately 45 combat engineers to Poland to assist in the training of Ukrainian sappers.

Since March 2023, CAF has deployed approximately 10 medical personnel to Poland to assist in the provision of lifesaving skills to Ukrainian soldiers.

Other personnel are currently stationed in Europe working with Allies on a range of topics including the facilitation of military aid, alignment of future donations, as well coordination for the immediate and longer term training needs of the Ukrainian Forces.

NATO countries have avoided direct involvement the war for two years. Seems weird that they would start now.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I appreciate that ... but the news from this friend and her son was that they were sending him off to either Poland or Ukraine in a combat role. I heard a similar story from another military family but I don't know them as well.

This was very startling for all of us. This kid is about 25 - 27 been in the Canadian Forces for about three or four years now and is from the Norfolk region in southern Ontario. I know the kid as I helped him out with computer issues when he was younger (he was a real little shit on Limewire that ruined two family computers that I had to help them fix).

I know the family and I trust what they say but I can't for the life of me think that this could actually be true.

Which makes me think that this kid is doing something else and is wanting to just head out to the fighting on his own.

Unless there is an actual development happening where we are thinking of sending combat troops to Europe.

[–] sbv 10 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Could the kid be running his mouth off? The handful of soldiers I've known have enjoyed tall tales. This might be the kid talking big.

Unless there is an actual development happening where we are thinking of sending combat troops to Europe.

I don't know much about military stuff or his rank, but I'm guessing that kind of information wouldn't be provided to rank and file soldiers until the last minute.

[–] Voroxpete 4 points 5 months ago

Officers get chatty. Soldiers hear things through the grapevine. But also, most rank and file are 18 year olds fresh out of high school, so they don't always have the best judgement when it comes to understanding what they're hearing, or separating fact from fiction.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm hoping so .... I can't ask too many questions to the mother because she doesn't seem to really know either. So much of what I am getting is something that someone else heard through the filter of their worries as a mother.

My personal worry is that it is either just miscommunication and someone is just not understanding something somewhere .... or the kid is doing something weird on his own and is getting into something weird other than with the Canadian military.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

I’m hoping so … I can’t ask too many questions to the mother because she doesn’t seem to really know either.

That should have been your first clue. You're getting 3rd hand information from someone not entirely familiar with the situation, getting information from a son that got limited information from their commander. Stop spreading misinformation...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Best explanation I can think of is a miscommunication somewhere in the chain, and that the deployment is not expected to see combat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I'm thinking along those lines too ... my other worry is that the young guy is going about doing something than with the Canadian military .. which is even scarier to me.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why shouldn't we send troops in cooperation with our allies to safeguard the rules based order? The reason why we got into the world wars is because nobody did anything to prevent them until it was too late. To those dedicated individuals who are willing to lay down their lives for our liberty i salute them.

[+] [email protected] -30 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Because the answer to the war in Ukraine is simple ... negotiate and mediate

And more simpler still, settle an agreement that Ukraine will not become part of NATO

The whole reason the war even started, the whole reason why it continues and the whole reason why everyone is pouring money into it is because of the NATO question.

Remove that necessity from the table and see what the Russians will do. If they continue invading and fighting, then you'll know that is just another war of aggression. If fighting can be stopped under the agreement, then you've stopped a war from escalating any further.

No one even wants to talk about this option and everyone just wants to fight without discussion. Ukrainians are dying enmasse just so the US and their allies can park themselves right next to Russia in an organization specifically designed against Russia.

I have no support for Russia, I think it's a brutal undemocratic regime led by an authoritarian but I do know that there is no need to needlessly antagonize a major military power when we don't have to.

Forget the whole NATO question and then we can all decide on whether or not Russia really wants world domination or not. No one has tried and everyone is wondering why the war continues.

Instead, everyone is willing to continue escalating the war without even trying to figure out a way to avoid antagonizing a nation with nuclear weapons.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago

You're an idiot. This is the second time Russia invaded Ukraine. We didn't respond the first time for Crimea, so Russia did it again.

The first time nothing was said about NATO.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You’re showing your true imperialistic colors. “Let the empire pillage its colonies” and all that jazz.

NATO was never an issue for Russia, and every time any kind of appeasement is attempted, Russia simply moves the goalposts and whines again.

They did invade multiple countries, they invaded Ukraine twice, but you would rather see them occupy more territories and ruin more lives, as long as you can pretend that occupation by an openly genocidal regime is peace.

[+] [email protected] -15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My only surprise to this comment thread is in discovering that c/Canada is not that far removed from r/Canada

[–] Voroxpete 9 points 5 months ago

You're going to get real lonely real fast if you think that supporting Ukraine and being a leftist are mutually exclusive.

Ask yourself this: Does standing up for an imperialist, autocratic fascist really align with my progressive ideals?

Just because he hates America, doesn't make Putin your friend. And Putin's people have gotten very good at spreading their propaganda through far left spaces, because they know how desperate people are in these spaces to latch onto anything that smacks of American Imperialism.

And to be clear, America is an imperialist power. No one is questioning that. But you have to look at the facts of the situation, not just reflexively assign heroes and villains based on your pre-existing feelings.

Every country has a right to its sovereignty. The "NATO question" is a Russian lie (they never brought it up when they annexed Crimea, their recent actions have actually pushed more countries into joining NATO including ones on their border, and Ukraine actually did offer to make never joining NATO a condition of peace but the Russians refused because they had no real interest in that), but even if it wasn't it still wouldn't justify invasion. Ukraine has the right to negotiate whatever treaties they want, because that's their right as a sovereign nation. By the exact same justification Russia could have invaded Canada to prevent us from joining NATO.

If the US (or Canada) invaded a country to stop them signing a treaty, would you feel that was fair and justified, or would you consider it another example of Western imperialism?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

So you think appeasing an aggressor will prevent war? I think that is a dumb take and i don't agree with your characterization of NATO being the cause. Those are Russian talking points and they are complete bullshit.

[+] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you have a source of that information? .... I haven't been able to find any news story, announcement about it.

There is one TStar article quoting an army official saying that it is possible

Under the right conditions, Canada open to sending noncombat troops to Ukraine, Defence Minister Bill Blair says

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/under-the-right-conditions-canada-open-to-sending-noncombat-troops-to-ukraine-defence-minister-bill/article_eec6806c-d71d-11ee-91fb-ab92d0af803e.html

[–] Voroxpete 3 points 5 months ago

"Noncombat." Its a training mission.

We've been running training missions with the Ukrainians since before the war started. The only question is whether to actually run those missions in Ukraine, or in a third party country like Poland or the UK. The army and the government are constantly assessing that based on the current state of the war. Running missions in Ukraine reduces the amount of time that Ukrainian soldiers have to spend away from the fighting (as well as imposing some logistical difficulties) but it also exposes our soldiers to somewhat more risk if the battle lines move suddenly, so they're weighing those factors against each other.