Lieutenant-General (Ret’d) Christopher Coates, former Deputy Commander of NORAD and Commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, has recently returned from Ukraine in his capacity as Director of Foreign Policy at the leading Canadian think tank, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
In the interview with Ukrinform, he discusses the current state of the war, Russia’s vulnerabilities, Ukraine’s drone revolution, and why Western defence systems are struggling to keep pace with modern conflict.
UKRAINE IS REALISTIC, BUT OUTSIDE FACTORS MATTER ENORMOUSLY
- You recently returned from Ukraine. What were your main impressions from this visit, and what do Western audiences still misunderstand about the current state of the war?
- I had been to Kyiv a couple of years earlier, so this was a return visit with a baseline for comparison. The first time, Kyiv felt as though it was trying to isolate itself from the effects of the war, almost as if acknowledging the war too openly would hand Russia a psychological victory. Life was continuing as normally as possible. The attacks were mostly at night, and the signs of conflict were relatively subtle.
