Canada urges other countries to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia

1 November, 2024 ATACMS launch. Photo credits: Office of Strategic Communications of the General Staff Canada is persuading other states to authorize Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes inside Russian territory.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly stated this in Montreal after the conference on the "peace formula". According to her, Canada approves of Ukraine's use of long-range weapons against targets inside Russian territory. She emphasized that it was part of Ukraine's self-defense against the ongoing Russian aggression.

"We (Canada - ed.) are also trying to convince other countries to take this position," the foreign minister said. It is known that a number of governments allow the use of weapons that they have transferred to the Ukrainian Defense Forces on Russian territory. However, some countries, including the United States, oppose such strikes.

At the end of the summer, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umierov, during a meeting with senior U.S. officials in Washington, handed over a list of targets deep in the Russian Federation that the Ukrainian Armed Forces want to hit with US ATACMS missiles. In particular, these are military air bases used by the Russian aircraft to strike the Ukrainian cities.

An M142 HIMARS rocket launcher launches the ATACMS missile. Fall 2023. Ukraine.

Frame from the video of the General Staff of Ukraine

In this way, Ukraine is trying to force the White House to lift the restrictions on the use of weapons for long-range strikes. The Ukrainian government, when hosting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kyiv on September 11, 2024, also urged him to lift the restrictions on strikes against Russia.

In the interim, Russia has dispersed its aircraft to different air bases located at different distances from Ukraine's borders.

The new realities require the use of more missiles and other longer-range weapons to target the Russian aircraft in particular.

In August of this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi announced that Ukraine had successfully tested the first Ukrainian-made ballistic missile.