UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CANADA – TELAM Agency
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Kyiv by surprise today as fighting intensifies between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the south of the country.
Trudeau, who is due to meet Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky, laid a wreath in front of a wall displaying the faces of fallen soldiers in Kiev, accompanied by a military band, AFP news agency reported.
Canada, a country with a large Ukrainian emigrant community, is one of Kiev’s key allies, providing military aid and training to more than 36,000 Ukrainian soldiers and enacting sanctions against Russia.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Oleksandr Polishchuk presented the Canadian Prime Minister with a box of shrapnel that fell on Odessa, Ukraine’s major Black Sea port city.
“It’s a little reminder of how Ukraine suffered from Russian missile barrages,” Polishchuk said in English.
A group of Ukrainian military personnel who received training in Canada spoke with Trudeau.
“It is a great privilege to meet the Prime Minister,” Colonel Petro Ostapchuk said.
Trudeau’s visit comes at a time when Russian authorities are reporting several large-scale Ukrainian attacks on Moscow troop positions in the south and east of the country.
These fights could be part of the great counter-offensive that Ukraine has been preparing for months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted yesterday that this counter-offensive to recover the occupied territories “has begun”, but indicated that “so far” all advances by Kiev’s forces have failed.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities and the military, bolstered by shipments of Western equipment, are keeping a low profile and have not commented on the Kremlin’s claims.
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