Canada boosts capacity of key supply hub for weapons to Ukraine

Defence Minister Anita Anand says Canada is boosting its capacity at a key transportation hub in Scotland, so weapons and other supplies can more easily be shipped to Ukraine and other countries in eastern Europe.

Canadian forces have been responsible for delivering four million pounds of cargo since March, and the Prestwick, Scotland hub will now be expanded into an air mobility detachment with a third CC-130 aircraft and 55 Canadian Armed Forces members present.

"We are expanding the ways in which we are assisting Ukraine and getting military aid to Ukraine by delivering even more aid," Anand told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton in an interview airing Sunday.

CBC News reported earlier this week Ukraine has written to the Canadian government to request armoured vehicles, howitzers and winter clothing.

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Canada has promised to deliver 39 armoured troop carriers, and Anand said she'd be meeting with industry partners in Canada to talk about the issue of supply.

Anand said NATO countries are all trying to strike a balance between arms shipments to Ukraine and maintaining supplies to their own armed forces.

"This is front and centre in my mind," she said.

Canada must say yes to Ukraine: Rae

Canada has committed or delivered $626 million in military aid to Ukraine since February.

Asked about Ukraine's list of weapons requests in an interview on CBC Radio's The House that aired Saturday, UN Ambassador Bob Rae said Canada would be hard pressed to deny the asks.

"It may be a career-limiting move for me to say this, but I don't believe we could say anything less than yes," Rae said.

"That's been my consistent advice to whoever, whoever, whoever is listening. Obviously, governments have to decide the pace at which they can do it."

Some NATO countries have struggled to strike the balance Anand described Sunday, due in part to a lack of robust inventory.

LISTEN | UN Ambassador Bob Rae discusses latest developments in Ukraine war:

"Since the end of the Cold War, not only have allies considerably restructured their armed forces, they also don't hold the stockpiles anymore that they used to have," Christian Leuprecht, a political science professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, told CBC News earlier this week.

"And so, effectively, most of what you ended up giving away today comes out of your current stockpile. So this is equipment that you're actually going to be actively short."

The calls for more aid from Ukraine come as offensives in both the country's east and south continue, but also as Russia announced a partial mobilization to bring hundreds of thousands more soldiers into its ranks. Russian President Vladimir Putin also threatened this week that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend itself.

Russia also announced and rapidly began referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories.

Anand said Putin's decision to raise the threat of nuclear war and mobilization were "acts of desperation."