Canada announces deployment of Canadian Armed Forces to train Ukrainian soldiers in the U.K.

The Minister of National Defence, Anita Anand, announced that Canada has authorized the deployment of Canadian Armed Forces personnel to train new recruits from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Anand says under operation UNIFIER, which is Canada’s military training and capacity building mission in Ukraine, the CAF will deploy up to 225 personnel to the United Kingdom. Majority of the personnel will work as trainers, supported by a command and control element, for an initial deployment of around four months.

The government says the first of up to three training cohorts, consisting of around 90 soldiers, will be largely drawn from 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry based out of Edmonton, Alberta. They are scheduled to depart on August 12 and will begin leading courses in the weeks following.

The first Canadian-led courses will take place at a military base located in South East England and will focus on individual skills training required to frontline combat, including weapons handling, battlefield first aid, fieldcraft, patrol tactics and the Law of Armed Conflict.

Operation UNIFIER was launched in 2015 at the request of the Ukrainian government. Early this year, it was expanded and extended until March 2025.