Canada Extends Support to Ukraine with New Military Assistance

According to a statement released by the Defence Ministry on Wednesday, Anita Anand, the Defence Minister of Canada, has announced that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will be contributing around 8,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition and 12 air defence missiles from its inventory to maintain Ukraine's existing air defence systems.

In addition, Anand stated that Canada will be contributing over 1,800 rounds of 105mm tank training ammunition to assist in the donation of Leopard 1 tanks, which was recently declared by Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.

As per the Xinhua news agency's report, Anand has further verified that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have initiated the delivery of extra Leopard 2 main battle tanks, which were committed by Canada towards the end of February.

The statement highlighted that Canada has pledged a total of eight Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. It further added that all the tanks, including the previously promised armoured recovery vehicle, associated equipment, and ammunition, will arrive in Ukraine in the forthcoming weeks.

Starting from February 2022, Canada has pledged several other military aid contributions to Ukraine, such as over 200 Senator commercial pattern armoured vehicles, a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System with corresponding munitions, 39 armoured combat support vehicles, and anti-tank weapons.

Under Operation UNIFIER, which is Canada's military training and capacity-building mission for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel are currently stationed in both the UK and Poland to aid in training Ukrainian Armed Forces members.

As per the Canadian Defence Ministry, since the initiation of Operation UNIFIER in 2015, the CAF has provided training to over 35,000 members of the Security Forces of Ukraine.