DISINFO: Canadian military trains Ukrainian snipers and miners to kill Donbas residents
SUMMARY
Canadian military trains Ukrainian snipers and miners to kill Donbas residents. Ukrainian miners and snipers are trained under the strict guidance of instructors from Canada. It is certain that in the near future, pairs of snipers prepared by foreign instructors will fire on the territory of the Luhansk People Republic with the aim of destabilising the situation on the contact line and provoking the defenders of the Republic to retaliate.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about foreign mercenaries in Donbas presented without any evidence. The statements are not confirmed by OSCE SMM reports or any other sources. The last time a Canadian National Defence Ministry delegation visited the site of the Ukrainian United Forces operation was in December 2019. According to the report of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, on 10 January at the station in Northern Luhansk, the OSCE observers only noticed four workers from areas outside Ukraine, who were repairing the roof of the roadblock of armed groups. No mercenaries or any foreign delegation on the contact line was reported. According to the Ukrainian Combined Forces Operation Press Centre, a Canadian delegation led by Canada's Assistant Deputy Minister of National Defence for Political Affairs, Peter Hammerschmidt, visited the area in December 2019. Currently, Canadian representatives of the headquarters of operation UNIFIER are joining Ukraine for various exercises. For example, in January 2020 a tactical exercise was held in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv at the training base for sergeants of the Ukrainian Navy. The training mission of UNIFIER continues in Ukraine for the fifth year. Up to 200 Canadian soldiers participate in the rotation. The mission of UNIFIER will last until 2022. For further reading on variations of the narrative see the debunk at StopFake.