Ukrainian MP calls on Canada to step up its game on weapons shipments

Inna Sovsun, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, checks in with her boyfriend every morning to make sure he's still alive.

He's fighting with Ukrainian forces somewhere in the east of the embattled country. Sovsun said she can't understand why Canada has not agreed to ship her country more armoured vehicles, in addition to what has been promised and provided already.

Her criticism is one of the first public rebukes Canada has heard from a Ukrainian official since the start of major hostilities with Russia last winter.

"He's fighting there and he's risking his life every single day," Sovsun said in an interview broadcast Saturday on CBC Radio's The House.

"The risk to his life, as well as to [the] lives of thousands of other Ukrainians, would be much, much lower if we had the armoured vehicles, if we had the tanks."

In a letter to his Canadian counterpart last month, Ukraine's defence minister asked for more combat vehicles over and above the 39 armoured troop carriers and eight lightly armoured Roshel tactical vehicles that Canada has either promised or delivered.

When Defence Minister Anita Anand announced this week an additional $47 million in military aid for Ukraine, she made no mention of additional combat vehicles or the howitzers the Ukrainians also requested.

"Not making decisions on the armoured vehicles, on the tanks that could be protecting our military personnel, it [is] just unexplainable," said Sovsun, a sitting MP with the liberal, pro-European Holos party. She is also a member of the Ukrainian parliament's energy committee.

"There are no good reasons for that and I want to hear an explanation as to why this is taking place."

'I really hope that Canada will reconsider'

She said she's also not hearing straight answers from other countries, including Germany and the United States, which have similar but much larger inventories. She said that in conversations with foreign lawmakers, she has heard that Ukraine's allies are afraid of escalating their confrontation with Russia.

"You know, it is escalated enough already," Sovsun said. "What we need to do is to free our land from the Russians and we cannot do that unless we get the weapons that we are asking for. So I really hope that Canada will reconsider."

She said she was in Kyiv early last week when Russia unleashed a stepped-up campaign of air bombardment with cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones.

Sovsun said she and her 10-year-old son hid in the windowless bathroom of their home while the bombs fell. At one point, she said, the boy asked her if he was going to die.

As they huddled listening to the explosions, she said, her son also asked her it was a conventional or nuclear detonation.

"And I said, 'It's a regular one,'" she said. "And then he said, 'Oh, OK, because you know, I know what to do in case of [a] nuclear attack because we learned that at school.'

"That is something I will never forgive Russians for, for my son knowing what to do in case of [a] nuclear attack."

In response to Sovsun's remarks, the defence minister's office underlined Canada's previous promises and deliveries of armoured vehicles.

DND reluctant to draw further from inventories

In a media statement, Anand said Canada "is exploring a variety of options to continue providing Ukraine with the comprehensive military assistance that it is specifically requesting."

Beyond the troop carriers, howitzers and anti-tank weapons Canada has provided already, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Army have resisted dipping further into current inventories of military equipment. Canada's military fears getting caught short in the event it is asked to confront Russia directly.

Speaking this week at the regular meeting of NATO defence ministers, Anand seemed to have heard and understood that concern.

"It is not sufficient for the Government of Canada to continue to draw down on the inventory of the Canadian Armed Forces," she said.

The meeting this week in Brussels was devoted partly to allies convincing defence contractors to ramp up production.

"Each country needs to leverage their own respective expertise, and in Canada, our expertise is in the area of [armoured] vehicles, is in the area of cameras for drones, is in the area of garments and winter clothing that we know well, given our own climate," Anand said.

"We will continue to leverage and exploit our areas of expertise to provide Ukraine [with] whatever it needs to fight and win this war."

A report tabled before Parliament recently showed the defence department did an inventory of its used armoured vehicles that might be of use to Ukraine. That report — contained in a response to a written question tabled in the House of Commons — said most of the decommissioned equipment was not suitable for transfer.

It did identify 62 Coyote reconnaissance vehicles "in repairable condition, but [they] would require significant repairs and parts which would take over 220 days to procure."