Canadian PM Carney Supports Security Guarantee For Ukraine

JAKARTA - Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday he supported Ukraine's call for strong security guarantees as part of any peace deal, saying Canada would not rule out troop deployments within the framework.

Three and a half years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, United States President Donald Trump has led peace efforts and Ukraine is working with its European allies to design a potential framework for postwar security guarantees for Kyiv, who has also been declared open by President Trump.

PM Carney, who made his first visit to Ukraine since taking office in March, joined President Zelensky in a memorial ceremony to commemorate Ukraine's Independence Day in downtown Kyiv, which was also attended by President Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.

"We are all trying to ensure that the end of this war will guarantee peace for Ukraine, so that neither war nor the threat of war remains to be passed on to our children," President Zelensky told top officials at Sophia Square, Kyiv.

President Zelensky said he wanted future security guarantees as part of a potential peace deal as close as possible to Article 5 NATO, which considers the attack on one member state an attack on all countries.

PM Carney supports Ukraine's call for potential international participation.

"According to Canadian judgment, it is unrealistic that the only security guarantee is the power of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that needs to be supported and strengthened," PM Carney told a joint news conference.

The two leaders also signed an agreement on joint drone production. PM Carney said Ukraine would receive more than $1 billion in military aid from the package announced earlier next month.

In a press conference with PM Carney, President Zelensky was asked about news in the Wall Street Journal which said the Pentagon for months had quietly blocked the use of the ATACMS missile supplied by Ukraine to strike targets in Russia.

A source familiar with the matter said, although there has never been an official suspension in long-range attacks, the Pentagon has made a review process that has so far not allowed attacks with ATACMS deep within Russian territory.

In response to this, President Zelensky said Kyiv had recently used its own domestically produced long-range weapons to strike targets within Russian territory, which had not yet obtained permission from Washington.

"Recently we have not discussed this issue with the United States," he said.