Canada is purchasing a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) from the United States to donate to Ukraine," said the country's Minister of National Defense Anita Anand on Twitter. The new provision comes after a recent phone talk with Ukraine's counterpart Minister Reznikov.
The Canadian minister noted that this is the first time Canada sends air defense systems to Ukraine. Until now, Canada did not go any further than sending armored vehicles, man-portable weapons, ammunition and spare equipment. As noted, NASAMS will help protect Ukrainian critical infrastructure against russian missile strikes.
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The system will be ordered from the United States which means it still has to be manufactured. As a reminder, the two NASAMS earlier provided by the US were provided under the USAI program which implies buying weapons directly from the manufacturers and sending them to Ukraine. The period of production may take months. The two NASAMS were announced in July but arrived only in November.
In contrast, weapons drawn from Pentagon's stocks are sent much quicker but the US did not use this variant when it came to supplying NASAMS. Currently, there are six more systems in the queue being manufactured for Ukraine by Raytheon and Kongsberg ordered by the USA, and the Canadian one will likely join it as the seventh.
NASAMS have proven very effective in repelling russian air attacks since they got to Ukraine, consistently showing a 100% result in downing cruise missiles and kamikaze drones.
At the same time, as Defense Express earlier reported, the USA is looking for more already available NASAMS in the Middle East. As suggested by the US, those countries that answer the call would receive a replacement for their systems in a few years.
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