Canada announces additional military assistance for Ukraine

Ottawa, Sep 7 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) Canada has announced additional military assistance for Ukraine. Canada will donate and transport 80,840 additional CRV-7 rocket motors and 1,300 warheads to Ukraine, Minister of National Defence Bill Blair said on Friday in a statement. The additional rocket motors, which followed Canada’s initial delivery of 2,160 CRV-7 rocket motors, are being prepared for shipment to Poland and will arrive in the coming months, said the statement. Canada will also be donating 970 surplus C6 machine guns and 10,500 surplus 9mm pistols from its inventory, Xinhua news agency reported. In response to a specific request from Ukraine, Blair also announced that Canada will donate decommissioned chassis from 29 M113s and 64 Coyote LAVs which will be repurposed or used for spare parts by Ukraine. Since 2022, Canada has committed 4.5 billion Canadian dollars ($3.3 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine. Blair was at Ramstein Air Base in Germany to participate in the 24th Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting, according to the statement. The Minister said that this week pilots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine arrived in Canada to begin training under the Lead-in fighter Training (LIFT) program. Canada has taken the lead on LIFT training for Ukrainian pilots as part of the aviation coalition. This was made possible by allocating $389 million for training Ukrainian F-16 pilots. In early February 2024, Chief of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov said that Ukraine had asked Canada to transfer CRV7 unguided air defence missiles. More than 83,000 of these decommissioned missiles were stored in the Canadian Army’s warehouse in Dundurn, near Saskatoon, awaiting disposal. Blair also spoke about the process of providing previous aid packages. The first batch of ACSV APCs in medical configuration has arrived in Europe, and training for the Ukrainian Armed Forces on these vehicles is underway. The remaining 40 vehicles in both cargo and passenger versions will start arriving in the spring of 2025, with delivery to be completed by the end of 2025. This month, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will begin training with Teledyne FLIR Skyranger drones. The delivery of the first 450 of these drones this summer was announced in April 2024. In August, Canada also delivered nearly $200,000 worth of IT equipment to support Ukraine’s cyber capabilities. —