PM Carney says 'balance of force is moving in the Ukrainians' direction'

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Turning to another aspect of your role and your leadership, you're spending I'm sure more time than you would want on, you know, open conflicts in the world.

[00:00:10]And so you touched on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war that's going on four years on in Europe. You mentioned that the outcome is not in doubt, but only a question of how much human suffering will further have to take place. Give us a sense from from where you're sitting, what do you think the outlook is for the war? And maybe speak a bit to some of the risks that are certainly concerning Europe that the Russians are going to have another push over the summer, possibly threaten one of the Baltic states as they've in a more specific way. Give us a sense of how you're thinking about this as a leader, as a NATO leader, and also maybe a bit how it connects to defense strategy and defense industry strategy for Canada.

[00:00:50]>> Okay.

[00:00:52]So, let me let me start with um Let me start with what we're doing and and then get to the outlook for it.

[00:01:01]So, we are we're one of the largest, arguably the largest per capita contributor to Ukraine across humanitarian and defense.

[00:01:11]So, 25 billion dollars and and counting.

[00:01:14]Our defense contributions, our principal defense contribution, but this is going to change this is changing with time and it gets to your defense question, have been basically purchase or financing of US weaponry for Ukraine defensive weaponry. So, they're called Pearl packages, but for those of you who follow it would know what they are and it's a way to band together through NATO purchase largely as you would expect missile and drone defense. They're it's an expensive way to do it, but it's necessary as we saw with this atrocious hypersonic missile attacks a few days ago that Russia inflicted.

[00:01:51]So, so we're doing that. The second thing Um, is um, we're we're involved We've we've trained 50,000 Ukrainian troops and and running we're very involved there. We're we're part of what's called a coalition of the willing, which is a series of countries largely European, but including uh Australia, New Zealand, um, a few others ourselves, um, that uh is providing a security backstop. So, when there is a peace deal, there'll be a credible backstop for Ukraine. First line of defense, of course, is them. Second line of defense uh would be uh would be us in various forms. And that is I will just give you the punchline. That is a highly credible, detailed, operational security backstop. Um, it's been it's been worked out and full credit to President Macron, Prime Minister Starmer for helping to lead uh and make that uh make that a reality. Um, the third thing in the region is we lead the brigade in um the NATO brigade in Latvia. So, as I've said, I think I said in my remarks, it's on the front line. That's, you know, five that is very much an operational role. So, and and and to get to where the conflict is, um, to put human suffering in context, um, I mean the terrible civilian suffering, I mean the civilian suffering in uh in Ukraine, the direct hits, um, but Russia's losing 35,000 peop- uh troops uh a month. Um, 22 to 23, depending on the month, of those troops are killed. Um, the the balance are incapacitated, to use a euphemism, but will not fight again. They're losing troops faster than they can replace them. Uh they are not gaining territory.

[00:03:29]Uh Ukraine is able to strike, as you see, uh increasingly deep into Russian territory on strategic energy and other targets, and they are doing so, and they will continue to do so. Russian economy is under more pressure. Um, this can go on for longer than uh any of us already has, but uh can continue to go on, but the balance of of force uh is moving in the Ukrainian's direction. And that gets to the last bit of your question. I'll try and be quick, but this is super important. So, we and others uh are uh following the the Danish model uh where we're partnering with because Denmark pioneered this. We're partnering with Ukrainian defense contractors.

[00:04:12]We're financing them to produce drones and other things for Ukraine's defense.

[00:04:17]But then we we're building capacity in Canada and Denmark and other places so that we can build that out for the future for our own defense because uh you know, the cutting edge of of defense, defensive warfare is in Ukraine. And the integration of autonomous warfare, AI, and those defenses are in Ukraine. So, part of it this we Canada's been a laggard. We're no longer a laggard in defense spending.

[00:04:42]We're not going to be a laggard. But part of the advantage of being a laggard, there's sometimes an advantage is when technology and things are changing, we will catch up at the at the frontier. Or at least that is that is very much our intention.