The Shameful Conduct of the Canadian Military

"Do we have a clear expression of CAF policy toward this group [the Azov Battalion]?" 

"This may or may not prompt questions, but we need to be ready and not come across as being taken by surprise.”

Chris Henderson, then assistant deputy minister for public affair

 

"In Ukraine, the Azov Battalion has recruited foreign fighters motivated by white supremacy and neo-Nazi beliefs, including many from the West, to join its ranks and receive training, indoctrination and instruction in irregular warfare."

Soufan Report

 

“Given the fact that the [Latvian SS] fought for a victory of the Third Reich, the most genocidal regime in history, and that among those serving in it were active participants in the mass murder of Latvian Jewry, as well as of German and Austrian Jews deported by the Nazis to Riga, such comments are incomprehensible, let alone deeply offensive, coming from a senior minister of a country with full membership in the European Union and NATO."

Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

A news broadcast by German ZDF station showed soldiers of the Ukraine Azov Battalion with nazi symbols on their helmets. Photo by Files /ZDF station

 Once again the Canadian Armed Forces' top brass has been revealed to be strangely oblivious to the fallout of matters they engage in without due thought to appropriate behaviour and their consequences. The Canadian public has been treated to a full-throated cry of desperation from female CAF members who have suffered sexual harassment and violence and when they bring the situation to the attention of military authorities, the issue is set aside, the victims of sexual violence left to steam in frustration, their abusers free to continue their upward trajectory toward leadership.

More latterly, the public has been reminded once again of the unsavoury contacts the Canadian Armed Forces leadership, along with government diplomats engage in through casual and personal contact with self-declared admirers of fascism and neo-Nazis abroad. Canada has a 'special' relationship with Ukraine through Canada's membership in NATO which has pledged to protect Ukraine from the intentions of the Kremlin to re-forge a union with Ukraine which the current government of Ukraine has no interest in and which Moscow has pursued with a vengeance.

Another factor in Canada's commitment to military partnership with Ukraine is the lobbying presence of large number of Ukrainian-Canadians urging a more firm alliance between Canada and Ukraine. An incidental but telling issue took place a few years ago when the Russian Embassy in Canada brought to the light of day, Canada's then-minister of Foreign Affairs and currently deputy Prime Minister and heir apparent to head the Liberal government's Ukrainian heritage. Chrystia Freeland's grandfather, it was revealed, was an ardent Nazi collaborator as the editor of a Ukrainian newspaper during WWII.

In his newspaper, Nazi propaganda found its place, along with vicious anti-Semitic sentiments; in no small measure doing his part in aiding and abetting fascist Germany in its dehumanization of European Jewry on their way to total genocide. So the Ukrainian community in Canada, has great influence in the country. However, since Canada is a country comprised of immigrant populations, a great congregation of people from all over the world, so too do Chinese-Canadians, Indian-Canadians, Italian-Canadians and other ethnic/cultural groups have influence, as they should, as Canadians.

In the latest revelations it would appear that Canadian officials and members of the military met with and were briefed by leaders from the Ukrainian Azov Battalion; neither the officers nor the diplomats involved voiced any objection to the meeting although they were briefed befirehand that they would be meeting with overt Nazi sympathizers. Photographs were taken of the meeting, which were used for propaganda purposes by the Azov Battalion online, stating that the Canadian delegation had expressed "hopes for further fruitful cooperation".

 

The Canadian Forces have decided, as a result of public embarrassment when an Ottawa newspaper revealing the unsavoury aspects of CAF interactions with foreign military forces, to mount a review of the issue. A review undertaken in response to the latest revelations of Canadian diplomats and military personnel meeting with Azov Battalion members while in Ukraine; a decision that arrived just as a Jewish group in Ukraine circulated a new video of Ukrainian paratroopers singing a song to honour Stepan Bandera who was an infamous anti-Semite and Nazi collaborator whose group was linked to the mass murder of over 100,000 Jews and Poles during the Second World War.

 

These new revelations fold neatly into the near past when senior Canadian Forces leaders took a pass on condemning glorification of Nazi collaborators in Latvia and Ukraine, where Canadian troops are conducting training sessions. The Latvian Minister of Defence Artis Pabriks publicly praised members of the Latvian SS who fought for the Nazis, proudly stating them to be "the pride of the Latvian people and of the state" and that his country would not "allow anyone to discredit their memory".

As a friend of Pabriks, then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan refused to comment, much less to condemn glorification of the SS unit. Canadian generals saw no reason to break their silence, at the 2019 event and declaration. The Latvian SS included personnel who took part in the wholesale murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Members of the unit were among the last defenders of the Nazi regime in Berlin.

Members of the Azov Battalion attend a protest against local elections in separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine in Kyiv on May 20, 2016.   Reuters

 

Just coincidentally, as though underscoring the lax attitude and moral and ethical failings of the military hierarchy in Canada and government leaders disinterestedly overseeing their conduct in such matters, Canada’s training mission to Iraq was brought under scrutiny when it was revealed that Canadian soldiers complained in 2018 to their commanders that among the Iraqi troops they were training were war criminals who enjoyed sharing videos of their atrocities, including executing prisoners and raping a woman to death.