With Ukraine’s air-defence ammunition running dangerously thin as Russia intensifies missile and drone barrages, Canada says it is stepping in with a major new package aimed at keeping Ukrainian skies protected.
Canada has agreed a C$350 million (€218m) aid package for Kyiv to acquire air defence interceptors, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced, after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kyiv is running critically low on US-made Patriot interceptors capable of stopping Russia’s ballistic missiles at a time when Moscow is stepping up its attacks.
“As Russia escalates its barbaric aerial warfare indiscriminately targeting civilian populations, Ukraine’s air defences are critical,” Mr Carney told reporters in the Canadian city of Calgary.
“Earlier today Canada and Ukraine finalised an agreement to deliver critical air defence interceptors … this C$350 million equipment package will help protect Ukraine’s people, infrastructure, and skies.”
He did not give details of which interceptors would be delivered or when the aid would start flowing.
The weapons will be provided through a US programme that allows third party nations to quickly buy and supply weapons such as Patriot missiles to Ukraine.
Mark Carney told Volodymyr Zelensky that ‘Ukraine’s air defences are critical’
Canada, one of Ukraine’s most vocal defenders, has committed more than C$25.5 billion (€16bn) in overall aid to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, including C$8.5bn (€5bn) in military assistance.
Mr Carney also said that his country aimed to ramp up drone production to be able to produce millions of units within the next two years. One-third of those would go to Ukraine, he said.
Canada is home to an estimated 1.3 to 1.4 million people of Ukrainian descent, forming one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas in the world.
Earlier, Mr Carney promised that his government would back Ukraine’s efforts to join NATO and the European Union.
Russia strikes targets in Kyiv, Dnipro
As diplomatic commitments were announced in Calgary, Ukrainian officials reported fresh Russian strikes hitting economic and logistics-linked sites — part of a broader pattern of attacks that has increasingly reached beyond the front lines.
Russia has struck a petrol station in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and an international agribusiness facility run by Bunge in the southeastern city of Dnipro, authorities said, as it intensifies attacks on logistics and economic targets.
Moscow has escalated its air campaign in recent weeks, launching ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones at warehouses, food suppliers and retail chains.
Kyiv has struggled to repel the attacks amid a shortage of air defence systems.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said that Russian assaults on businesses and civilian infrastructure were “rapidly growing” and urged the government to “react and act in advance”.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilian sites.
The strike on the Ukrnafta petrol station appeared to be the first jet-powered drone attack on such a facility in Kyiv.
It followed around 300 assaults on petrol stations in or near Ukraine’s frontline regions in recent months.
Four people were injured, according to Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko.
“There is no military objective in such strikes. This is terror and intimidation of the civilian population,” said Ukrnafta Chief Executive Bohdan Kukura on Facebook.
The aftermath of a Russian airstrike on a residential area of Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine
In Dnipro, two people were killed in the attack on the Bunge sunflower oil facility, one of Ukraine’s largest food plants with a processing capacity of 1,600 tons of oilseeds per day.
It was the second assault on a US-owned business in several weeks, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
“This is no coincidence, but part of Moscow’s systematic terror campaign against American businesses and economic interests,” he wrote on X.
Five people were wounded in the attack, a local official said.
In Pavlohrad, a key transit point in eastern Ukraine leading to frontline areas, a Russian strike killed four people and wounded around 60, regional officials said.
In the northeastern city of Sumy, officials said that a jet-powered drone hit a shopping centre – a day after two people were killed and 20 wounded in a similar attack there.
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With both sides increasingly striking supply networks and commercial infrastructure, the conflict has taken on a sharper economic dimension alongside the battlefield fighting.
Moscow and Kyiv have traded escalating strikes in recent weeks on logistics and other economic targets, aimed at damaging each other’s war effort.
Ukraine has attacked Russia’s largest online retailers and oil refineries, often deep inside the country, as well as energy and fuel logistics in regions of its own territory occupied by Russian forces.
Russia has stepped up strikes on Ukraine’s ports, killing four and injuring 19 in the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight, regional officials said.
Meanwhile, One person died and six were injured in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region, according to regional authorities.
They said the target was an unnamed facility in the town of Novy Oskol.
