Ottawa will provide the Ukrainian military with high-resolution images from Canada’s powerful RADARSAT-2 satellite, which will cross over the country twice everyday in order to collect important information in regards to the Russian-backed rebels in the east.
Kenney said in a CBC interview that :”We will begin providing radar satellite images to Ukraine, which was the single biggest ask of Ukrainian President Poroshenko when he was in Ottawa in September,”
In the past few weeks Ukrainian forces have been fighting intensely against the rebels, yet a ceasefire was announced yesterday which has been said to be “generally holding”.
On Thursday the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany met at Minsk to try and find a solution to the fighting. Approximately 5,300 people have died in the conflict which has been raging for the past 10 months.
The current ceasefire however is not stable, and Canada, according to Kenney, is “skeptical” over how long it will last.
Canada has been sending aid to the Ukraine since last year. Ottawa has provided over $66 million dollars for gear such as helmets, weapons, and other supplies, but it appears the Harper government wants to escalate involvement in accordance to international response as well. In fact Kenney said that the Canadian government is in “very close contact with our allies to see what the next steps might be.”
Kenney said that currently: “We don’t have huge stockpiles of equipment to supply, if we were to get into that kind of business it would be by acquiring it from other vendors and then supplying it to Ukrainians,”
On Feb. 11th, the United States made is clear that they will send military advisers to Ukraine to begin training troops on the ground.
