Zelensky arrives in Canada seeking air defences before winter

The prime minister's office cast the trip in similar terms, saying it underscored "Canada's continued leadership in supporting Ukraine" and reflected an unwavering commitment to a just and lasting peace.

Zelensky was due to take part in a signing ceremony with Carney on Thursday morning, the subject of which had not been announced, before speaking to reporters and travelling on to Banff, where the cabinet was holding a two-day forum. He was also expected to address Liberal MPs there. It is not his first visit to the province: he attended the G7 summit at Kananaskis last year on Carney's invitation.

What Canada has given, and what it has not

Canada has pledged $6.5 billion in military assistance since 2022, running through to 2029. The Kiel Institute, which tracks international support for Ukraine, ranks Canada fourth among donors in raw dollars and twelfth as a share of gross domestic product, counting military aid, government financing and humanitarian support.

Ukraine has been a rare point of cross-party agreement in Ottawa, with MPs across the political spectrum placing it at the centre of their foreign policy platforms. In May, Canada joined an arrangement to learn from Ukrainian drone manufacturers, whose battlefield designs have advanced quickly. No new funding has been announced since.

It is Zelensky's first visit to Canada this year; he was last there in December, in Halifax. Carney travelled to Kyiv in August 2025, and his predecessor Justin Trudeau visited Ukraine each year following Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Straight from a funeral in Oslo

Zelensky came to Calgary from Norway, where he and his wife, Olena Zelenska, attended the funeral of King Harald V on Wednesday. In Oslo he met the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, to discuss air defences and the Freyja anti-ballistic missile programme — a project joining Ukraine with nine European countries, Norway among them, and several European defence manufacturers. Ukraine wants a working prototype ready in the first half of 2027.

Zelenska is due to meet Canadian philanthropists who fund support for Ukraine. The couple are scheduled to visit Toronto and North Bay, Ontario, before leaving on Friday.

The air defence request is not abstract. Ukraine is heading into a winter in which Russian strikes on power and heating infrastructure have become an annual feature, and the Freyja programme is one attempt at a longer-term answer - an anti-ballistic system built with European partners rather than bought from an ally whose political weather can change.

The wider argument

Ukraine has held back Russian advances in recent months and struck targets inside Russia, among them oil refineries and warehouses belonging to the country's largest online retailer. Moscow has at times signalled interest in ending the fighting, but Ukrainian and European officials argue any settlement must stop Russia rearming and attacking elsewhere. That position explains why the shopping list Zelensky brought to Alberta is defensive hardware rather than a request for mediation: Kyiv's argument is that the terms of any peace depend on what it can hold when the talking starts.

That argument has hardened as European governments accuse Russia of widening the war by other means, including sabotage — paying young people to vandalise railways — while drone sightings attributed to Russia have repeatedly forced European airports to suspend operations.