Speaking to Canadian broadcaster CBC News, Brigadier General Simon Hetherington confirmed Canada will deploy 450 troops to Latvia alongside other deployments from Spain, Slovenia, Poland, Italy and Albania, in addition to local Latvian troops.
The "diverse team" of military forces being assembled in Latvia will be further complicated by the fact that no countries other than Canada are part of the so-called "five eyes" group of countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) whose intelligence services share information.
"Nobody is in the Five-Eyes there so we've got to be careful about what we do there in that regard," Hetherington told CBC News, adding that it was expected Russia would try to create distrust and dislike between NATO soldiers and the local population using now familiar methods of disinformation and propaganda.
"We need to be prepared for the worst case... This is about showing the solidarity of our alliance. The willingness of Canada to be prepared to defend one of NATO's allies," said Hetherington.
The full article can be read via the link below.
Canada's battle group grapples with challenges ahead of Latvia mission https://t.co/1aZnPXAaT6 pic.twitter.com/hsIdPOdbyB
— CBC News (@CBCNews) March 21, 2017