February 20, 2024
The Canadian government will send over 800 SkyRanger R70 multi-mission drones to Ukraine, Canada’s Defense Minister Bill Blair announced on Feb. 19.
“As the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches, these drones will address some of Ukraine’s most urgent defensive needs,” the ministry said in a press release.
The SkyRangers come equipped with autonomous navigation systems and can carry payloads, including munitions, of up to 3.5 kilograms. They are designed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and can also be used to transport supplies.
The drones are valued at over $70 million. Funding for the weapons comes from a military aid package for Ukraine worth 500 million Canadian dollars ($368 million) that Canada announced in June 2023.
“Today’s announcement ensures that Ukraine has the drones it needs to detect and identify targets which are critical to Ukraine’s ongoing fight. Canada will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Blair said.
The drone delivery follows Canada’s announcement on Feb. 14 at the 19th Ramstein-format meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) that it would donate $44 million to support Ukraine’s future fleet of F-16 fighter jets.
Canada has donated approximately $7.2 billion dollars to Ukraine since February 2022, including $1.8 billion in military aid.
https://kyivindependent.com/canada-to-donate-over-800-drones-to-ukraine
That’s nice. Canada has been a bit lukewarm in military aid to Ukraine, but those drones will be a great help since artillery ammo is getting scarce.
Lukewarm? Canada has been cheap and in my mind despicable. They should be ashamed.
Not as cheap as some European Nato nations, which are much closer to Ukraine, Captain. They deserve a much larger part of the blame.
I guess my attempt at diplomacy was a failure. 😁
There are 1 million Ukrainians in the US. Canada has 1.4m.
What percentage are of fighting age? How many of that percentage have military training? How many would volunteer for the motherland if their respective governments guaranteed to keep their jobs open until they return? Same question for any democratic countries with a Ukrainian diaspora?
Has anyone thought of tapping this resource? The time to do so is now.
No way! OUR ukrainians will not be killed by Putin. Putin wants to extract all slavic blood from our society. I’m in favor of allowing in more ukrainian refugees in and naturalizing them immediately.
Ukraine has a chronic shortage of troops. Where do you suggest the minimum half million currently needed will come from?
Eventually Ukraine will surely be overrun by nazi vermin unless it doubles the size of its standing army.
Zelensky has to make a choice, either mobilize everyone that can be mobilized, and forget about losing his popularity, or do nothing, and lose the war.
Right, Focusser. It’s a difficult decision to make – damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t – but an unavoidable one. And he has already delayed it for too long. But reports say that some units are down to 20% of combat strength, so this can’t wait any longer. Either reinforcements are raised or the front may collapse. What has to be done is obvious and the president needs to act now.
The country has to come first. I suspect there are millions of Ukrainian men available for mobilization, if they don’t want to fight for their country and future, they don’t deserve a country.
Women, too. Not necessarily in frontline combat units, but there’s many other jobs to do. For instance, the increasing number of drone troops need recruits, too. Womanpower for victory!
Kyiv is swarming with them.