Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has expressed support for Ukraine’s calls for security guarantees as part of any peace deal with Russia.
During a visit to Kyiv, where he met Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Carney said a group of Ukraine’s Western allies, known as the Coalition of the Willing, is working with the United States to bolster Ukrainian defences.
“In Canada’s judgment, it is not realistic that the only security guarantee could be the strength of the Ukrainian Armed Forces … that needs to be buttressed and reinforced,” Carney told reporters.
Carney also floated the possibility of deploying troops to Ukraine as part of these security guarantees.
“We are working through – with our allies in Coalition of the Willing and with Ukraine – the modalities of those security guarantees on land, in the air and the sea, and I would not exclude the presence of troops.”
This development comes as US President Donald Trump is leading efforts to end the war, and Kyiv is working with its European allies to secure post-war guarantees to protect Ukraine from the possibility of renewed Russian attacks.
Carney joined Zelenskyy for a ceremony in central Kyiv to mark Ukrainian Independence Day, which was also attended by Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.
“We are all working to ensure that the end of this war would mean the guarantee of peace for Ukraine, so that neither war nor the threat of war are left for our children to inherit,” Zelenskyy told a crowd of dignitaries.
The Ukrainian president said he wants future security guarantees as part of a potential peace deal to be as close as possible to NATO’s Article 5, which considers an attack on one member state as an attack against all.
Zelenskyy and Carney signed an agreement on drone co-production, and the Canadian prime minister announced that Ukraine would receive more than $1 billion Canadian ($723 million) in military aid from a previously announced package next month.
Carney also called for an end to the fighting in Ukraine during his visit, saying, “We need a cessation of hostilities. We need a ceasefire. We can call it a ceasefire, a truce, an armistice. That’s necessary to stop the killing.”
However, hopes for a ceasefire on the ground remain dim as Kyiv and Moscow continue to exchange fire. On Sunday, Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out a drone attack on the nuclear power plant in Kursk near the Ukrainian border, igniting a fire.
Local authorities, meanwhile, said a Russian drone strike killed a 47-year-old woman in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk. Zelenskyy renewed calls for a bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the “format of talks between leaders is the most effective way forward.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused European leaders of undermining efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
“We want peace in Ukraine. US President Trump also wants peace in Ukraine. The reaction to the Anchorage meeting, the visit of these European representatives to Washington, and their subsequent actions indicate that they do not want peace,” Lavrov said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.