Referring to discussions during the Munich Security Conference last weekend and the Ramstein Group meeting in Brussels last week, Blair said,
“Ukraine reminded us of how important it is to invest in security.”
He stressed that increasing military production by NATO countries is about building stability for the future. “We need to do more to increase production. Production is deterrence,” he added.
The value of the new Ukrainian military aid package to Ukraine is over CAD 95 million, Blair reported. The drones are equipped with an advanced camera system and sensors for collecting information and identifying targets, and
they can also carry various payloads weighing up to 3.5 kg, including missiles.
The SkyRanger R70 drones are produced by Teledyne FLIR, a Canadian company from Waterloo, and as Vice President Anne Bulik informed, production for Ukraine is already underway, with deliveries scheduled to begin in late March and April of this year.
Since February 2022, Canada has provided Ukraine with a total of
CAD 9.7 billion in aid, including CAD 2.4 billion in military assistance, including training for Ukrainian pilots. “Ukrainians are flying these F-16s over Europe and will soon be ready,” Blair announced.
Two weeks ago, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly announced that
Canada and Ukraine are in the final stages of negotiations for a bilateral security agreement. In an interview with the public broadcaster CBC, she said that signing the agreement is a matter of weeks.
Security agreements are an initiative of the G7 countries after Ukraine was not offered specific accession prospects during the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023. Ukraine has already signed such bilateral agreements with the
United Kingdom, Germany, and France.
