Canada may hand over air-to-ground rockets to Ukraine that were to be disposed of

Photo: Embassy of Canada to Ukraine on Facebook

Canada’s Department of National Defence is considering the possibility of giving Ukraine CRV7 air-to-ground rockets which were planned to be disposed of.

Source: CBC News; European Pravda

Details: The Canadian Armed Forces have 83,303 CRV7 rockets in service, which were developed in the 1980s and phased out in the early 2000s. Three years ago, the federal government signed a contract to dispose of these rockets over several years.

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The Conservatives are demanding that the Liberal government transfer tens of thousands of these rockets to Ukraine. Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre made the call on Friday during a debate in the House of Commons on a bill to update the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement.

“Instead of making Canadians pay millions of dollars to decommission these weapons,” he said, the weapons should be given “to Ukraine who can use them in the defence of sovereignty”.

Canada’s Department of National Defence acknowledged on Friday that rockets were being considered as part of a possible future military aid package. According to a defence official, the problem is that while Canada still has tens of thousands of rockets and their engines, not all of them have warheads.

The defence minister’s spokesman confirmed that the government is considering the possibility of handing over the rockets.

“Before sending equipment to Ukraine, we coordinate closely with Ukraine to ensure that any donation would meet its military needs, and we examine the operational effectiveness of the equipment,” said Daniel Minden in a media statement.

“We are following this same process for the CAF’s stock of CRV7 rockets, purchased decades ago. In particular, we are pursuing testing to ensure that this equipment is operationally effective and safe to transport to Ukraine before any potential donation.”

Developed during the Cold War and manufactured by Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg, the CRV7 was considered one of the most powerful air-to-ground rockets of its time and was still in service with allied countries during the war in Afghanistan.

Background:

• On 2 February, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly paid an unannounced visit to Ukraine.
• During her visit, it became known that Canada and Ukraine would establish an international coalition to work on bringing back to Ukraine children forcibly transferred from the occupied territories to other occupied oblasts or to Russia.