KYIV, May 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new weapons and equipment for Ukraine after an unannounced visit to Kyiv, the capital.
Trudeau, addressing a news conference after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also said Canada was imposing new sanctions on Russian individuals and entities in connection with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Today, I’m announcing more military assistance, drone cameras, satellite imagery, small arms, ammunition and other support, including funding for demining operations,” Trudeau said.
“And we’re bringing forward new sanctions on 40 Russian individuals and five entities, oligarchs and close associates of the regime in the defence sector, all of them complicit in Putin’s war,” in a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trudeau visited the town of Irpin outside Kyiv, the focal point of fierce battles between Ukrainian and Russian troops before the Russians withdrew late in March.
He said Canada was reopening its embassy in the Ukrainian capital.
Canada was also providing US$25 million to the UN’s World Food Programme as part of efforts to uphold food security and would remove trade tariffs on all Ukrainian imports to Canada for next year.
Meanwhile, the US top diplomat to Ukraine Kristina Kvien and her team arrived in Kyiv on Sunday, officials said, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised on a visit last month to reopen the US embassy in the Ukrainian capital soon.
The move is the latest step toward the resumption of a full US presence in Kyiv after diplomats began returning to the western city of Lviv last month, having left the country ahead of Russia’s Feb 24 invasion out of security concerns.
The trip, timed to commemorate Victory in Europe Day on Sunday, was a temporary visit and does not signal the reopening of the embassy, a senior State Department official said. Russia celebrates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany on its Victory Day on Monday.
Blinken spoke to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday and informed Kuleba that a small group led by Charge d’Affaires Kvien “travelled to Kyiv to conduct diplomatic engagement in advance of the planned resumption of Embassy Kyiv operations”, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.
The team is the first delegation from the Biden administration to visit Ukraine’s capital since the invasion, aside from Blinken’s visit alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Blinken and Austin did not visit the embassy.
US first lady Jill Biden separately made an unannounced trip to Ukraine on Sunday, crossing into a border town from Slovakia and meeting Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska. — NNN-AGENCIES
