Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged Monday to more than double Canada’s contribution to the NATO mission in Latvia.
Canada will thus inject funding of $2.6 billion over three years and will deploy up to 2,200 Canadian soldiers continuously.
Trudeau made the announcement in Riga during a joint press conference with Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Karinš alongside Canadian Minister of National Defense Anita Anand.
“This is the way forward in modern defence,” Trudeau said. “Nearly a dozen NATO nations cooperate, train and work side by side and learn valuable lessons from each other that strengthen our collective defence. »
About 800 members of the Canadian Armed Forces are already part of the Canadian-led battle group in the Baltic country, making it the largest Canadian mission overseas. The additional personnel will strengthen and improve Canada’s land, sea and air capabilities and support special operations in Central and Eastern Europe.
Prime Minister Trudeau also announced that Canada would purchase advanced weapons systems and was prepared to deploy additional personnel for crisis response, cooperative security and collective defense, in addition to providing intelligence and cyber assistance.
“Canada and all countries must be clear that Russia’s unprovoked war against an independent country, against a free and democratic Ukraine, is a threat to freedom, international law, human rights and all of the shared democratic values that generations of soldiers have fought to uphold,” said Prime Minister Trudeau.
Last month, Minister Anand announced that a Leopard 2 tank squadron with 15 tanks and around 130 personnel would join the mission starting this fall.
This is all part of the NATO military alliance’s efforts to increase its presence near Russia’s borders in response to that country’s ongoing assault on Ukraine.
The Atlantic Alliance has doubled the number of battle groups in the region since the start of the aggression in Ukraine and plans to increase the size and scope of some of them to make them combat-ready brigades.
A joint roadmap signed by Minister Anand and her counterpart from Latvia outlines three phases to transform the Latvian battlegroup into a brigade and says they aim to complete the reinforcement in 2025.
“By 2026, Canada will complete the full implementation of persistently deployed brigade capabilities in Latvia,” reads the joint roadmap.
NATO leaders, including Prime Minister Trudeau, are expected to gather in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, from Tuesday for their annual summit.
Mr. Trudeau was due to meet with some of the Canadian Armed Forces members who are stationed in Latvia later Monday before leaving for Vilnius.