Canada Pledges $566 Million and a Third of Its Drone Output to Ukraine as Zelenskyy Tours Calgary

Since U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner wrapped separate meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin on September 5 and 6 without a breakthrough, the diplomatic track toward ending the war has stalled while military aid keeps moving. Zelenskyy spent this week making sure it keeps moving in his direction.

The Ukrainian president landed in Calgary, Alberta, on Wednesday night for a three-day visit, and by Thursday he had a deal. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada will send 350 million Canadian dollars, about $254 million U.S., in air-defense interceptors to Ukraine, funneled through a U.S. mechanism known as the Joint Ukraine Multinational Program (Jumpstart), according to both the Associated Press and The Guardian.

Carney also pledged more than 430 million Canadian dollars, roughly $312 million U.S., in loan guarantees to help Ukraine buy natural gas and shore up its Energy Security Fund ahead of winter, PBS reported. Carney said the goal is to help repair power infrastructure and keep electricity flowing to hospitals through the cold months, when Russian strikes routinely trigger rolling blackouts.

The bigger long-term commitment is drones. Carney said Canada's military currently has about 2,000 drones but plans to scale up to millions within two years, a tenfold expansion of its domestic fleet. One-third of everything Canada manufactures, he said, will go to Ukraine. "These drones will go to Ukraine immediately to the battlefield, immediately to our people, our soldiers, to save our children, our families first of all," Zelenskyy said.

The two leaders also signed what Carney called a "Hundred Year Partnership," a framework to be negotiated over coming months covering defense, critical minerals, energy and reconstruction. Carney tied the gesture to Alberta's roughly 350,000 residents of Ukrainian descent and to a wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada dating to 1893. "Ukrainians helped build Canada and Canadians will help rebuild Ukraine," he said.

All of this lands against a backdrop where Washington itself has stepped back from direct weapons donations. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has shifted to selling arms to European allies and Canada, which in turn buy for Ukraine under the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, according to the Associated Press. Canada's air-defense package announced Thursday runs through a comparable U.S.-administered channel rather than a direct American gift.

Zelenskyy told reporters in Calgary he doesn't expect "strong negotiations" with Moscow during Russia's ongoing election period, but he said he expects to meet Trump in New York in late September, likely on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "I can be more open after the New York meeting with President Trump," he said, adding that his national security team is in daily contact with American counterparts about a possible three-way meeting.

That matches what Witkoff told reporters in Kyiv after his September 5-6 trip, when he said talks in Moscow made "a lot of progress" and that he was "very encouraged," according to the Epoch Times. Zelenskyy called the same round of talks "very substantive" but said the core "territorial issue" remains unresolved. No date for further talks has been set.

Before reaching Canada, Zelenskyy flew to Oslo to attend the funeral of Norway's King Harald V on September 9. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told the broadcaster NRK that Zelenskyy's plane "was nearly hit by a drone during takeoff in Moldova." Norway's finance minister, former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, said Zelenskyy personally described being delayed by "some threats against the plane" during a Tuesday-night meeting, though Stoltenberg said he didn't know further details.

Ukraine's government pushed back, telling reporters the Norwegian account was exaggerated. Moldovan authorities offered a narrower version, according to Le Figaro: national airspace was closed to protect flights after a Russian drone entered from Ukrainian territory, and that drone later crashed roughly 160 kilometers from Chisinau, well away from the airport. Which account is more accurate, an aircraft in direct danger versus a precautionary airspace closure, remains unresolved between Oslo and Kyiv.

A Daily Signal opinion piece by James S. Gilmore III argued Ukraine's drone campaign, now reaching Russian refineries, arms plants and at least one semiconductor facility, has become a template the Pentagon is studying directly. Gilmore pointed to a U.S.-Ukraine defense partnership signed in July that exports Ukrainian combat drones to the U.S. for testing, and to April-May joint exercises in which he says American forces were repeatedly out-maneuvered by Ukrainian drone tactics. That framing is one side's argument for why Washington's interest in Kyiv's technology, not just its territory, is likely to outlast whatever comes out of a Trump-Zelenskyy meeting in New York.

Zelenskyy's itinerary now takes him from Calgary to Banff for a session with Carney's cabinet, then to Toronto and North Bay, Ontario, before the next test of whether any of this week's pledges translate into a scheduled sit-down with Trump and Putin's negotiators.