Canada promised an air defence system to Ukraine 18 months ago. It still hasn’t arrived
Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, says his country is in urgent need of weapons and wishes the air defence system Canada promised more than a year ago was already in Ukraine.
Canada announced plans in January 2023 to donate a $406-million surface-to-air missile defence system, but there’s still no delivery date.
“Of course, we wish the system was already in Ukraine because we are in a situation where every piece of air defence matters,” Kuleba said when asked by CBC News at the conclusion of the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland on Sunday.
“It’s an issue of death and life, issue of survival of our energy infrastructure.”
Ukraine is in a difficult position on the battlefield, and Russian gains have led to intense fighting northeast of Kharkiv. Russian drone and missile strikes have badly damaged the country’s energy grid.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the air defence system, known by the acronym NASAMS, is currently being built by the United States, and the delivery date is out of Canada’s control.
“We are working with the U.S. to accelerate production and get it off the assembly line and get it to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Trudeau said when asked by CBC News at the summit.
“We know the Americans want to do that as well, but it is something that is not entirely in Canada’s control.”
Kuleba said he is aware that Canada is “actively pushing” to speed up the delivery and that he wanted to make a simple point.
“The road to peace, the road to recovery in Ukraine starts with air defence and weapons that make our soldiers stronger on the battlefield,” he said.
Both Kuleba and Trudeau were among those who attended the two-day talks at a Swiss Alpine resort, at the behest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to forge a path forward to end the war in Ukraine. War broke out after Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
Trudeau quiet about deploying trainers to Ukraine
Speaking to reporters, Trudeau wouldn’t say whether Canada will commit to sending military trainers to Ukraine. NATO ally France has made a public pledge to send trainers.
“Canada has trained over 35,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces and that continues,” Trudeau said. “We know how important it is, through working in various places, it is to continue to enable Ukraine to stand against the tremendous numbers and resources that Russia is throwing at them.”
In an interview with CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton, the Canadian military’s chief of the defence staff, Gen. Wayne Eyre, said he received a briefing on the training mission from his French counterpart following D-Day commemoration ceremonies earlier this month.
Eyre said he did not want to speculate on whether Canada would agree to back France’s plan with Canadian troops. He did say the last time Canada had military members in Ukraine was when they were already fighting Russian-backed forces in the east.
“At some point, it’ll be right to go in,” he told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live.
Canada and other allies have been running battle schools since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. More than 300 Canadian Armed Forces personnel are currently deployed for the training mission, which is taking place in Poland, Latvia and the United Kingdom.
$52-million package for Ukraine
Canada announced more than $52 million to help Ukraine replace damaged energy infrastructure, remove explosives and mines, and support children and youth at risk.
The announcement includes money to help reintegrate displaced Ukrainian children “through improved child protection services and family-based care options,” according to a government news release.
Trudeau said Russia must be held accountable for thousands of children being displaced, saying its actions resembled an element of genocide.
“Everyone can agree that taking kids away from their families, trying to erase their language, their culture, that’s an element of genocide,” the prime minister told reporters. “That’s pure colonialism. These are things that Russia needs to be accountable for.”
At a closing press conference at the summit, Trudeau also announced that in the coming months, Canada will host a meeting with foreign ministers “to advance the work on the human cost of this war.”
Canada has agreed to contribute $5 billion US to a $50 billion US loan to help Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The U.S.-led plan involves using the interest generated from roughly 200 billion euros (about $215 billion US) in frozen Russian assets.
Published at Sat, 12 Feb 2022 16:04:48 +0000
Southern Gaza aid route to see ‘tactical pause’ in fighting, says Israel
Israel’s military announced on Sunday that it would pause fighting throughout daytime hours along a route in southern Gaza to free up a backlog of humanitarian aid deliveries destined for desperate Palestinians enduring a humanitarian crisis sparked by the war, now in its ninth month.
The “tactical pause” announced by the military, which applies to about 12 kilometres of road in the Rafah area, falls far short of a complete ceasefire in the beleaguered territory that has been sought by the international community, including Israel’s top ally: the United States. If it holds, the limited halt in fighting could help address some of the overwhelming needs of Palestinians that have surged even more in recent weeks with Israel’s incursion into Rafah.
The army said the pause would begin at 8 a.m. local time and remain in effect until 7 p.m. It said the pauses would take place every day until further notice.
The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway — a main north-south road, the military said. The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.
COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said the route would increase the flow of aid to other parts of Gaza, including Khan Younis, Muwasi and central Gaza. Hard-hit northern Gaza, which was an early target in the war, is being served by goods entering from a crossing in the north.
The military said the pause Sunday, which begins as Muslims start marking the major Eid al-Adha holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies.
Following criticism of the move by ultra-nationalists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, who oppose a halt in the war, the military said fighting is not being paused in the rest of southern Gaza and there is no change regarding the entry of aid in general.
Aid agencies, including the UN, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The pause along the southern route comes as Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest proposal for a ceasefire, a plan that was detailed by President Joe Biden in the administration’s most concentrated diplomatic push for a halt to the fighting and the release of hostages taken by the militant group. While Biden described the proposal as an Israeli one, Israel has not fully embraced it and Hamas has demanded changes that appear unacceptable to Israel.
The fighting, meanwhile, continues unabated. Israel announced the names Sunday of 11 soldiers killed in recent attacks in Gaza. That puts the number of soldiers killed since Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza last year at 308. Hamas killed 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 attack and took 250 hostage, Israeli authorities say. Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Israel’s military offensive against Hamas has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. The international community has urged Israel to do more to allow aid to flow.
Egypt remains firm on Rafah crossing
Another crossing, the Rafah terminal between Gaza and Egypt, has been closed since Israel moved into the city. Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Sunday called for more pressure to open border crossings into Gaza. Egypt has refused to reopen the Rafah crossing as long as Israel controls the Palestinian side in Gaza.
From May 6 until June 6, the UN received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.
Aid trucks are not getting into Gaza, strangling food, water and medical supplies. Some truck drivers avoid areas where Israeli settlers attack aid trucks while Egypt and Israel blame each other for keeping the main Rafah crossing into Gaza closed after Israel captured it a week ago.
The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than one million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.
COGAT says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.
A spokesman for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the UN’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.
The UN denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for UN trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.
It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.
As Israeli airstrikes continued to hit Gaza on Wednesday, people in the central city of Deir al Balah told freelance journalist Mohamed El Saife they hope Hamas leaders accept a ceasefire plan outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden last week, but called for international guarantees and clear terms around rebuilding. ‘They have to agree this time, because people are very tired,’ said Abdul Karim Al-Qarnawi, a resident.
The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for co-ordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.
It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they moved along the highway.
Published at Sun, 16 Jun 2024 10:45:02 +0000
