A gaggle of roughly 175 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel departed from Valcartier for Latvia to take part in Operation Reassurance, presently the Canadian Armed Forces’ largest abroad mission.
“Final 12 months, Canada and several other different NATO international locations introduced that they might decide to growing their presence within the Baltics. Canada has already been in Latvia for a number of years, however right here we’re going to transfer from a battle group (1000 individuals) to a brigade (2200),” explains Colonel Cedric Espierault.
That is due to this fact the sixth in a sequence of army flights deliberate between now and the start of August. In complete, round 1,200 troopers from the fifth Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group may even go away Valcartier to go to Latvia.
“This can develop into Canada’s largest contribution in a few years. By way of figures for troop contributions exterior the nation, we return to the figures for Afghanistan,” he defined.
The Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Latvia to Canada, Kaspars Ozolincs, was additionally current to welcome the troops upon their departure.
The commander of the NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia (BMN-L), Colonel Cedric Aspirault, with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Latvia to Canada, Kaspars Ozoliņš | Didier Debusschere/Journal de Québec
“An enormous problem”
Colonel Aspirault could have fairly a mandate there as soon as he turns into the commander of the NATO Latvian Multinational Brigade.
He’ll command a brand new brigade in Riga that may consist primarily of Canadians, but in addition of troops from 11 different NATO member international locations. So he shall be accountable for all of the troops and the totally different detachments to ascertain the mission there.
Didier Debusschere/Journal de Québec
“That is going to be an excellent problem and it’s an honour for us {that a} workforce from Quebec is doing it for the primary time. It is not going to be a straightforward job, nonetheless, it requires a variety of laborious work and reflection,” he confused.
Consisting of artillery, armor, mechanized infantry, fight help, fight service help and digital warfare elements, the brigade will practice to answer an assault and current a unified entrance in opposition to adversaries.