Canada announces another military aid package for Ukraine as Russia presses air attacks

As Ukraine struggles to fend off a series of punishing Russian air attacks, Canada is sending the embattled eastern European country more supplies — everything from munitions to mittens — Defence Minister Anita Anand announced Wednesday.

Just over $15.2 million in howitzer ammunition and $15 million in winter clothing make up the bulk of the latest military assistance package Anand announced as she sat down with her NATO counterparts in Brussels.

Canada also will provide another $15.3 million worth of the high-tech cameras the Ukrainians have been using on their drones, along with more satellite communication services.

The overall package is worth $47 million.

Anand's statement builds on an announcement earlier this week that Canada is sending 40 combat engineers to participate in a training mission in Poland. They'll be instructing their Ukrainian counterparts on the use of high-tech detection equipment.

In a letter early last month, Ukraine's defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, asked Canada for winter clothing. He also asked for more armoured vehicles and howitzers, in addition to what the Liberal government already has committed.

Anand defended the decision to not send more vehicles and artillery — equipment that would have to be taken out of the Canadian Army's existing stocks and inventory chains.

"We are assisting with military equipment as I've announced today. We are assisting with training as I've just mentioned, and we are assisting with transportation from our hub in Prestwick, Scotland," Anand said. She was referring to the C-130J military cargo planes that have been transporting donated allied equipment to the border with Ukraine.

The Liberal government set aside $500 million in the spring budget for military aid to Ukraine. That pot of money has since been exhausted — mostly through the purchase of 39 brand-new armoured support vehicles, a handful of which are in the process of being delivered now.

The meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels comes against the backdrop of Moscow's stepped-up air campaign in Ukraine. Russia has lobbed dozens of cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones at critical infrastructure across the country.

Both the United States and Germany are in the process of delivering modern short- and medium-range air defence systems. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made it clear that more needs to be done.

"Ukraine is a big country, many cities, so we need to scale up to be able to help Ukraine defend even more cities and more territory against horrific Russian attacks against their civilian populations," he said.

At least 26 people have died in such attacks in Ukraine since Monday. Germany recently announced it had sent the first of four promised IRIS-T SLM air defence systems.

The United States said on Tuesday that it had approved shipment of eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS).Two are expected to be delivered soon and six more are being sent over a longer timeframe, a senior White House official said Tuesday.

The Canadian Army has no air defence system to donate even if it wanted to, and its stocks of other equipment are equally strained, said a defence expert.

"I think we've have effectively exhausted all of the relatively easy and larger quantity types of donations we could make several months ago and now it's a question of incrementally doing what we can and waiting for some of our own shelves to get restocked," said Dave Perry, vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, an Ottawa-based think-tank that occasionally has had events sponsored by major defence contractors.

A reluctance to part with more equipment is gripping an increasing number of Ukraine's allies — who worry about their own capabilities should the West get dragged into the war with Moscow.

For some, it speaks to the need for the defence industry to ramp up production to a so-called wartime footing — something NATO ministers also wrestled with on Wednesday.