Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada Andrii Plakhotniuk addressed the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, providing an update on the current situation in Ukraine and thanking Canada for its consistent and strong leadership in supporting our country.

"I was profoundly honoured to brief the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade of the Senate of Canada on current situation in Ukraine. The briefing took place on October 22, 2025.

The key messages from my briefing are:

📌 Canada was among the very first countries to recognize Ukraine’s independence on December 2, 1991. Since then, our two states have been close friends and allies. Our friendship is deep and strong as it is based on shared values and warm people-to-people ties, rooted in the Ukrainian Canadian community of almost 1.4 million people.

We are sincerely grateful to all the Senate members for their unanimous support of the Draft Law, sponsored by the Honorable Senator Kutcher, that designates the month of September as “Ukrainian Heritage Month”.  

Since the start of the Russian full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Canada has been demonstrating strong leadership in supporting Ukraine, being the largest financial contributor per capita among G7 countries. We are sincerely grateful to Canada's G7 Presidency for prioritising Ukraine, as well as for Prime Minister’s Carney first visit to Ukraine on its Independence Day on Aug. 24, 2025.

📌 We will never forget that the first tranche of the macrofinancial support we received from Canada, the first Leopard 2 tanks delivered to Ukraine were from Canada; the Canadian Armed Forces have trained over 46,000 of the Ukrainian military in the framework of the UNIFIER Operation.  

Canada is a strong leader in continuous support of the sanction’s regime against Russia; a valuable participant of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, as well as of the “Coalition of the Willing”. Canada is an active member of the PURL initiative, allocating $500 million for strengthening the defence capabilities of Ukraine.  

📌 We highly appreciate all these and many other efforts, including Canada’s leadership and co-chairmanship in the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. We are also grateful to all the Senate members for the adoption of a motion (tabled by Senator Kutcher and seconded by Senator Ravalia) on condemnation of Russian attacks on Ukrainian children and interference in their lives.

📌 Putin has no will for peace. These days, the Russians use every single day to strike our energy infrastructure, targeting gas extraction facilities, coal mines, electric power grids. 

The Russian terrorists are shelling and bombing civilian areas far from the front line, critical power infrastructure, which is a clear act of genocide and a war crime.  

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale armed aggression, more than 50% of Ukraine’s energy capacity has been destroyed, damaged, or occupied. According to the latest World Bank assessment the needs for restoring Ukraine's energy sector amount to about 68 bln USD.

As of today, Ukraine’s most urgent needs are to restore its energy sector and critical infrastructure, as well as financial support to cover our gas shortages to survive the winter. Any immediate contribution to that end is crucially important.  

📌 Any war is about numbers and stocks. Any war is also about technological race. To win this war, we desperately need to increase the number of weapons and refill our stocks.  

Our long-standing top priority is air defense, missile defense against ballistic threats, deep strike capabilities, combat aircrafts, artillery systems, long-range missiles, electronic warfare systems, engineering equipment, drones and ammunition.

Ukraine is ramping up arms production both domestically. We are ready to develop joint production of defense materiel with our partners, including Canada.

📌 Canada's continued military and financial assistance to Ukraine in the framework of our bilateral security agreement is crucial. We will be extremely grateful if the new aid packages of at least the same size as last year will be included in the federal budget of Canada for the 2026 fiscal year.

📌 Ukraine wants just, comprehensive and lasting peace like no other country in the world but stands ready to continue its fight for freedom and independence, as we have no other choice to survive. We strongly support President Trump’s efforts to stop the fighting immediately on the current line of contact.  

Unfortunately, Putin wants to continue killing and destruction. He will only stop when he is forced to. We must maintain the increased pressure on Russia’s economy and its defence industry, until Putin is ready to start bona fide negotiations on peace.  

📌 We must develop mechanisms to use the full value (body) of Russia’s immobilised sovereign assets so that Ukraine has the resources it needs. In this regard, we are sincerely grateful to Canada for providing CAD 5 bln of G7 $50 bln initiative (ERA Mechanism) from the profits of the Russian immobilized assets.

We hope that Canada will maintain its leadership and create a global legal precedent according to the international law by adopting the Draft Law (sponsored by Honorable Senator Dasko) on a review of the possibility to allow the confiscation of frozen sovereign and sanctioned assets through a simplified executive-led procedure.  

📌 We should substantially strengthen the sanction regime and target shadow tanker fleet, as well as key sectors of the Russian economy: military-industrial complex, energy, metallurgy, nuclear and chemical industries, IT and financial sectors. Further bold international steps to exclude the possibilities for Moscow to circumvent sanctions are also overdue.

We hope that the Canadian Government will soon announce new strong sanctions package, including in alignment with those imposed by Ukraine.

📌 Russia must not prevail. Ensuring Ukraine’s victory in the war is a central pillar in any credible strategy to address the Russian threat. Moscow will only be willing to engage in genuine negotiations when and if the Kremlin sees its current strategy failing.

We should multiply our joint efforts to put pressure on Putin and to make him stop this war. This is the only way. The concept of “peace through strength” has proven its effectiveness multiple times throughout the word’s history. Now, it is time to use it once again.  

Deeply grateful to the Honourable Senators, members of the Standing Committee, for a very interesting discussion."