We’ll take your old military equipment and repair it ourselves: Ukraine MP

Those calls for weapons were echoed at the latest NATO Ukraine Council meeting on Friday, with allies promising news on air defense system soon. It’s also why one Ukrainian MP was here in Canada just last week. Alexandra Ustinova is the head of Ukraine’s special parliamentary Commission on Arms and munitions. And she was just in Ottawa where she met with Canadian government and defense officials, pressing them for urgent help. And Alexandra Ustinova joins me now on her way back to Ukraine in a roundabout way, but joins me now from Texas. Good to see you this morning. Thanks for making the time. Thank you so much for inviting and I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet while you were here. But, but let me start with the news from yesterday out of the US there that that aid is going to make its way there. President Zelensky obviously very happy that Congress finally got this done. How will this money help right now, do you think? Well, this money is life saving literally because it’s not only for all soldiers who will receive. Hopefully if the bill passes next week in the Senate and and President Biden signs it the same day, we will have next week already the artillery shells coming to the front lines. Because so far it it’s been very tough for all the soldiers to protect my country and not only my country, but actually Europe because it’s going to be a big war in Europe if Ukraine goes down. And the artillery shells were almost at the zero level. We also saw the latest attacks on the civilian population. The last, and I’m not saying I’m not over as a grading, the last power plant in Ukraine was totally destroyed. And unfortunately, right now, Ukraine doesn’t have any energy plants left. And this is because Ukraine literally ran out of the ammunition for the air defense. We did not have the interceptors left. The Russians knew that their Intel is working really nice. And just because there was a really big delay in the United States for almost seven months, yeah, we ran out of the munition and we had to give up some of the territories even. Well, so. So what could this change, do you think then practically on the battlefield to have this influx of ammunition, certainly, but also new weapons. First of all, it’s going to change the lives for people in the cities because we’re going to have the interceptors, which are the missiles for the air defense. And we can protect our children, our civilians from being bombed every day. Second, in this package that the United States Congress has passed last night, basically, there is also a part, there is also a new part that wasn’t voted before, and it says that Ukraine should be provided the Long Branch missiles such as attackers. If we receive those, we would be much better in shooting down the warehouses with the military warehouses that the Russians have. And I hope it’s going to be much better for us in terms of them being able to use their drones against us. It is also very important to note to say that we do hope to get more the mining equipment. We do hope to get more stuff in terms of the armed vehicles coming to Ukraine because we, we need them desperate to protect our soldiers at the front lines. So we definitely can keep the front line at the same level. We’re not talking about the counter offensive. Right now. We’re building 3 lines of the fortifications. But we understand that having this help, this lifestyle saving help coming from the United States, which is, which is munition will help us keep at least the war, keep the Russians at the at the same borders that they are right now and not let them proceed further. You, you were here as I mentioned in Ottawa last week, you met with government officials, Minister Blair, defence officials. You met with my colleague Murray Brewster, who’s got a, a good story out today talking about what you were asking for. But what was your message to them ’cause you, you were specifically interested in things that we don’t want anymore, we don’t need anymore. So what was your message to to Canada? I’m surprised that there are hundreds of equipment such as the lofts. This is the armed vehicles that your army has been CAF has been using for quite a while and it’s now sitting in your warehouses because you’re replacing it with the new ones. My question was why don’t you send those to Ukraine? There are literally hundreds of bizones of coyotes. Those are loft two, loft three that are produced in Canada because you have your own production. Why don’t you use that them in Ukraine? And when I was told, well, they’re old, we have to repair them. Trust me, Ukrainians know how to repair. We know how to make a hovitzer out of three hovitzers if this is needed because armed vehicles is saving lives for all soldiers who sometimes have to go through the minefields without any equipment and without any arms protection. I was also telling that we need to speed up and provide Ukraine with more de mining equipment because there is there is 7 kids de mining kids, it’s called wood clearance kids that are used to de mine the territories. Well, there is no need for them in Canada. And I understand you have a very crazy neighbor just like we do in your architect. But even if they start the invasion there, it’s definitely not going to be mining the territories. So I was begging to give us those if it is possible. And what was the response? What was the response, Alexandra? So I do hope there will be some movement in terms of providing us with the the mining equipment. And I think there will be a lot of discussions, especially in your parliament and the government. Or why don’t we provide Ukraine with the at least old stuff that we have? I was at your military base in Petawawa. They have just recently received 43 new labs and they still have the old ones sitting. And I understand that your military are very clear. If there is a political decision for us to send those to Ukraine, we will because we understand the need. So far, Ukraine has received 39 armed vehicles from Canada. This is less than 10% of Canada actually has. And we do hold that the decision, the political decision to provide more can be done. And we need to understand the urgency that this needs to be done not in two years. It needs to be done now because we had been asking Canada also to ramp up the production for the munition, for the artillery shells, because Canada has its own production lines. And unfortunately, it took two years almost to actually put out the contracts with the industry. And again, this is not sending money to Ukraine or not supporting Ukraine. This is literally putting mine in your own economy because the prices for their shells had risen almost 10 times since the war broke. And this is a really good investment even in terms of the economic, in terms of economic value. So hopefully we will see the production in a year, the results of the production. I wish this was done two years ago and we could have seen those shells coming to Ukraine already. But I do hope there will be a decision to provide Ukraine with more armed vehicles, not only the medical ones, because it is very helpful that Canada and we are very grateful for the new ones that USA sending for our medical groups that are saving our soldiers at the front lines. But we do need the armed ones as well, Alexander, and they are the best. I just, I want to, I’m going to end it there. But thank you so much. Thank you so much. You make a very convincing case for your country and I appreciate you making the time for us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.