Displaced by Russian invasion, Ukrainians in Canada build armoured vehicles to contribute to war effort | CBC News

Every day, they’re grinding, welding and wiring heavily protected trucks for a battle nearly 8,000 kilometres away.

It’s demanding labour with shifts scheduled around the clock, but some Ukrainians working at the Roshel armoured vehicle plant near Toronto consider these jobs especially meaningful.

Displaced by Russia’s invasion, it’s their way of contributing to the war effort back home. 

“I can support our army while being safe,” said Vladyslav Utkin, who wires vehicle parts such as door locks and headlights in the Mississauga, Ont., plant. 

CBC News in Ukraine: This week, join The National hosted by CBC’s chief correspondent, Adrienne Arsenault, in Kyiv. Watch at 9 p.m. ET on CBC News Network, 10 p.m. on CBC TV, and streaming on CBC Gem and CBC News Explore

The Ontario armoured vehicle maker Roshel employs 80 uprooted Ukrainians among a staff of 300, and is looking to bring in more.

Utkin is among the latest to be hired. He just landed in Canada on Jan. 20.

Ukrainians work together at Ontario plant

The “weather and the air” are familiar here, Utkin said in an interview. “It has a similar smell” to his native Kyiv.

At his new job, he’s able to speak his own language with others working in the same small room. Management tries to keep Ukrainians grouped together to make it easier for them to communicate with colleagues.

“Sometimes I don’t even remember that I’m in Canada,” Utkin said with a smile.

Only 17, Utkin was attending college when the invasion began. Now, he’s being housed by a local family while his own loved ones wait to come to Canada. His mother, 12-year-old brother, and his grandmother, aunt and uncle are all in Israel awaiting Canadian visas, he said. Utkin’s father is fighting with Ukraine’s military.

“My mom is so upset about it,” he said. The past year has seen Utkin displaced to Poland, Austria and Israel before he came to Canada. “It was so difficult.”

Federal data shows Canada has seen more than 167,000 Ukrainians come here since the start of 2022. Millions were displaced after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine a year ago, on Feb. 24.

Refugees ‘contribute to their homeland’

Meanwhile, at Roshel, orders for armoured vehicles for Ukraine kept piling up, including a recent $90-million contract with the Canadian government. The firm needed more staff, fast.

Roman Shimonov, Roshel’s founder and CEO, saw an opportunity months ago as an influx of Ukrainians arrived in the Toronto area.

“They’re good workers,” he said of the Ukrainian refugees. “They’re coming to contribute to their homeland … Most of them cannot be on the front line due to age limitations and physical limitations.”

Anastasiia Davydenko, 36, worked in purchasing for a company in Kyiv before the war. 

She fled to Canada in April 2022 and tried working the same job remotely. But she soon realized the difference in time zones would be unmanageable with her workday beginning at 2 a.m. Toronto time.

Davydenko updated her online resume and posted her details to LinkedIn. It wasn’t long before Roshel came calling. She started with the firm last June.

It was “kind of a miracle,” she told CBC News of her job with the armoured vehicle maker. “I’m helping my country, helping my people, so it brings me a lot of joy.” 

To assemble a Senator, Roshel buys F-550 pickups from Ford and builds over the truck’s chassis with ballistic reinforcements and accessories tailored to the buyer.

The Senator armoured personnel carrier, Roshel’s flagship product, is typically used by law enforcement and other agencies in North America. The firm lists NASA, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection as clients. 

But the beastly vehicle has been adapted for the battlefield in Ukraine with additions like landmine protection. The production line is churning out four Senators a day, with Roshel aiming to ramp up production to six a day. It’s already more than ever before. The firm told CBC it previously had a maximum output of 10 a month.

WATCH | Ride inside a Roshel armoured vehicle in Ukraine: 

A look at the Canadian-made armoured vehicles being donated to Ukraine

Canada is providing 200 Senator APCs, armoured personnel carriers made by Mississauga, Ont.-based Roshel, to Ukraine.

Shimonov said he expects to send upwards of 1,000 vehicles to Ukraine “within a very short time.”

A CBC crew in Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region spotted Senators in use in recent days near the front line. 

Plan to retain workers after war

Davydenko said she’s unsure about her future and whether she’ll return to Ukraine. “It’s kind of a hard question … I’m more of a realistic person.”

“I know exactly what Russia did to Moldova, to Georgia,” she said, referring to the long occupied territories in the former Soviet states. “I don’t think [the invasion of Ukraine] will be finished in a year, even.”

Whenever the fighting does end, Shimonov says he has a plan to retain Ukrainian workers who return home.

Roshel already operates a hub in Ukraine for after-sale support, he said, and after the war, the firm intends to open a plant, partly staffed by those who gained knowledge and experience in Ontario.

“When they’ll go back to Ukraine,” Shimonov said, “they’ll be able to continue working there, without looking for a job.”

In a conference room at the Mississauga plant, shrapnel from a Russian missile that Shimonov says was collected a few months before the invasion is displayed in a glass case. He says the material, purchased from the Ukrainian embassy, helps put everything into perspective.

Not only does the shrapnel remind staff what they’re keeping Ukrainian troops safe from, but Shimonov says it also serves to highlight that the conflict “is not as far as we think.”