A space technology company based in the Greater Toronto Area has been called in by the federal government to provide military assistance to Ukraine.
Brampton-based company MDA says by using satellite radar imagery it’s able to locate Russian troops and share intelligence with officials.
“We can see through things. We can see through weather, we can see through clouds. We can see in day and we can see in night,” said MDA’s CEO Mike Greenley.
“We fly over now, we can quickly and easily detect what’s changed. Are there new ships coming close to the shore? Are there new vehicle groupings on a certain roadway?”
Security and defence expert Christian Leuprecht says while Russia already has extensive satellite intelligence on Ukraine, MDA’s imagery can be used as another tool to level out the playing field.
“It is certainly considerably increasing the capability by providing direct access to the Ukrainians’ satellite capabilities that they didn’t before have themselves,” he said.
It’s not the first time Canada has provided geo-intelligence. The country did the same in 2014, the last time Russia invaded Ukraine.
Peter Schturyn, who is the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’s Toronto Branch, says it is “one of the real things that Canadians and everyone around the world can do. Ukraine needs any kind of military and medical aid.”
And while Canadians have banded together to deploy mass amounts of humanitarian aid to the warzone, MDA says it feels obliged to help from a defence standpoint.
“To be able to have important assets like radar-based satellites and be able to contribute our imagery, to keep them informed of the activities in their country, it’s a very rewarding feeling,” Greenley said.