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Nicolas Moquin, a spokesman for the Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters, said the Canadian military has been providing sniper and counter-sniper training to Ukraine’s security forces since September 2015. He said Canada is not looking at this time of providing additional sniper training to coincide with the delivery of new weapons.

Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images

The current training Canada is providing is “mainly on application of doctrine and tactics” and is not dependent on the specific type of weapons used by Ukrainian security forces, he added.

Canada has been one of the nations most vocal in its condemnation of Russia’s actions in the Donbass. Besides military training, it has provided Ukraine with non-lethal military equipment and has committed more than $700 million in financial, development, humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine.

While foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland has yet to sign off on the export permit for the rifles, Bezan said he anticipates she will do so as she is a strong supporter of Ukraine.

“If everything goes according to plan I would expect Freeland to sign off sometime this month,” he said. “I think the goal is to have (rifles) in their hands by the time of any fall-winter offensive in Donbass.”

If everything goes according to plan I would expect Freeland to sign off sometime this month

Global Affairs Canada official John Babcock would not say whether Canadian taxpayers are financing the sale, and would not provide any other details about the arms deal. “The government has an obligation to protect confidential commercial information,” he stated in an email. “Further details related to export transactions (for example, names of exporting companies, financial values of individual contracts and transactions, and details of the specific technologies being exported) are protected due to the commercially confidential nature of such information.”