Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 18th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Colleagues, I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 13 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room, and remotely using the Zoom application.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, September 23, the committee is meeting to study Canada's response to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

I would like to welcome our witness for the first hour. From the embassy of Ukraine, we have His Excellency Andrii Plakhotniuk, ambassador of Ukraine to Canada.

Up to five minutes will be given for opening remarks, after which we will proceed to rounds of questions from members of this committee.

I now invite His Excellency Mr. Ambassador to make an opening statement.

Welcome.

[H.E. Andrii Plakhotniuk, Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada, Embassy of Ukraine]

Mr. Chair, distinguished members, thank you for inviting me to appear before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to talk about the situation in Ukraine. It is a great honour and privilege to be here today.

If you'll allow me, I will continue in English.

Let me start with words of sincere gratitude for Canada's consistent and strong leadership in supporting Ukraine. Since the first days of the restoration of the independence of Ukraine, our two countries have been close friends and allies. Our friendship is deep and strong and based on shared values and warm people-to-people ties rooted in the Ukrainian Canadian community of almost 1.5 million people.

In this regard, we hope that members of the House of Commons will unanimously support the draft law sponsored by the member of the House of Commons, Mr. Yvan Baker, which would designate the month of September as Ukrainian Heritage Month.

Mr. Chair and distinguished members of the committee, since the start of the full-scale Russian 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 the G7 countries. We are sincerely grateful to Canada's G7 presidency for prioritizing the Ukrainian cause. We will never forget that the first tranche of macro-financial support was received from Canada—the first Leopard 2 tanks delivered to Ukraine were also from Canada—and that the Canadian Armed Forces have trained over 46,000 members of the Ukrainian military in the framework of Operation Unifier.

Canada is a strong leader in continuous support for the sanctions regime against Russia, and we highly appreciate the recent decision announced by the Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on November 12 to impose additional sanctions under the special economic measures regulations. Canada is also a valuable participant in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, as well as the coalition of the willing.

Canada is an active member of the PURL initiative, allocating $500 million for strengthening the defence capabilities of Ukraine. Ukraine and Canada have launched the international coalition for the return of Ukrainian children, joined by 41 countries and the Council of Europe, as a part of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative. So far, 1,819 Ukrainian children have been successfully returned from deportation or forced transfer. In this regard, let me sincerely thank the members of the House of Commons for the adoption of a motion tabled by the former member of the Bloc Québécois, Stéphane Bergeron, in 2023, condemning the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and their deportation to Russia. We would appreciate it if you could renew the motion in the House, because diplomatic pressure on Russia is still very important.

Mr. Chair, distinguished members of the committee, Russian terrorists are shelling and bombing civilian areas far from the front line, including critical power infrastructure, which is a clear act of genocide and a war crime. Just throughout the last week, the Russians launched nearly 1,000 attack drones, about 980 guided aerial bombs and 36 missiles of various types against Ukrainians.

On November 14, during the large-scale overnight attack on Ukraine, Russia employed nearly its entire range of strike capabilities. Ukrainian cities were targeted with 430 attack drones, 18 ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, as well as the Zircon hypersonic missile. As a result of the attack, seven people were killed and 35 were wounded, including children and a pregnant woman.

The Russians strike our energy infrastructure every single day, targeting gas extraction facilities, coal mines and electrical power grids. 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 amount needed to restore Ukraine's energy sector is about $68 billion.

Ukraine's urgent needs today are the restoration of its energy sector and critical infrastructure, as well as financial support to cover our gas shortages so that we can survive the winter. An immediate contribution to that is crucially important.

The situation on the front line remains tense. The armed forces of Ukraine continue defensive operations in the Pokrovsk direction in Donbass. According to our estimates, the Russians have deployed approximately 150,000 troops toward this specific area of Pokrovsk, from a total number of approximately 700,000 Russian troops operating on Ukrainian territory.

Our long-standing top priorities in air defence are missile defence against ballistic threats, deep strike capabilities, combat aircraft, artillery systems, long-range missiles, engineering equipment, drones and ammunition. Certainly we are talking about additional Patriot systems and missiles for Patriot and other air defence systems.

Dear Mr. Chair and distinguished members of the committee, Ukraine is ramping up arms production, both domestically and in co-operation with our partners. We invite foreign companies to establish production facilities directly in Ukraine. We want to multiply the results of the Danish model, built-with-Ukraine and built-in Ukraine initiatives.

We are also considering controlled armed exports for overproduced weapons, such as naval drones. In this regard, 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 packages of assistance, of at least the same size as we had last year, are considered and included during the next period.

Ukraine wants a just, comprehensive and lasting peace, like other countries in the world. We strongly support President Trump's efforts to stop the fighting immediately on the current contact line, yet it is Russia that continually obstructs the peace process.

This year alone, there have already been dozens of opportunities for a ceasefire, but Russia spurned all those peace proposals. Putin will stop the war when he has no illusion of an eventual victory on the battlefield, and when the price of continuing the war exceeds the price of stopping it.

Collectively, the international community has sufficient capacity to make this price unbearable for Russia. We should continue to strengthen the sanctions regime and target the shadow tanker fleet as well as key sectors of the Russian economy, its military-industrial complex, energy, nuclear and chemical industries and IT and financial sectors.

Further bold international steps to exclude the possibilities for Moscow to circumvent sanctions are also very important. We must develop mechanisms to use the full body of Russian immobilized sovereign assets so that Ukraine has the resources it needs to fight the war, to survive, and for post-war reconstruction. In this regard, we are certainly grateful to Canada for providing $5 billion Canadian as a part of the G7 ERA mechanism for the profits of Russian immobilized assets.

Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, Russia must not prevail. Ensuring Ukraine's victory in the war is the central pillar of any credible strategy to address the Russian threat. Russia is weakened. Despite the Russian propaganda claims, Russia is not winning, and Ukraine is not losing the war.

In 2025, Russia has occupied less than 1% of Ukrainian territory. Due to the international sanctions and coordinated strikes of the defence forces of Ukraine on key military and industrial targets within the territory of the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, the oil and gas revenues of the Russian budget are decreasing. By the end of this year, Russia will have lost at least $37 billion U.S. in its budget from oil and gas income.

Therefore, we should multiply our joint efforts to put pressure on Putin and make him stop the war. This is the only way. The concept of peace through strength has proven its effectiveness multiple times throughout world history, and now it's time to use it once again.

Thank you very much. I'd be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your remarks, Your Excellency.

I will now open the floor to questions from colleagues on the committee, beginning with MP Kramp-Neuman.

You have six minutes.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

Perfect, thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellency, for being here today.

I'd like to start by suggesting that the Government of Canada and the official opposition have consistently expressed their strong support for Ukraine, and they condemn Russia's illegal aggression.

I would like to speak specifically about the children. I attended the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe a few months ago. There was a specific session about the Ukrainian children.

Specifically, last year, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed Resolution 2529, which condemns the Russian government's illegal, deplorable abduction and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children.

Are you able to speak to how the rest of the European community has reacted, both to that resolution and, more broadly, to the deplorable actions of the Russian government against Ukrainian children?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

First, let me mention a couple of things.

According to our estimates, as of today we count around 20,000 Ukrainian kids who have been abducted by the Russian authorities. They're now on the territory of the Russian Federation. The biggest problem in this regard is certainly that Russian authorities are trying to change the information about these children, their personal data—they're changing their names and so on and so forth—so as to make it impossible for us to track their exact location and then to demand their return to Ukraine and to their Ukrainian relatives.

This is a very big issue for Ukraine, and we are using every opportunity, together with our partners. Canada plays a very important and leading role in these efforts within the international coalition for the return of Ukrainian children. Certainly, we are supported by European partners. We also enjoy good services, and we really greatly appreciate the strong contribution from other states and other international partners—like Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia—that have channels of communication with Russian authorities in order to bring kids back home.

This matter is truly very urgent. On the one side, the kids are growing. What we see is that it's about the brainwashing policy, about the curriculum in Russian schools, about military training camps—all in order to change their identity from Ukrainian to Russian. This issue is so important, and we really need constant and very bold action and efforts in order to get tangible results.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

This is disturbing and wrong on so many levels.

The resolution itself also mentions Belarus. Are they being forced by Moscow, or is Belarus a willing partner in the kidnapping of Ukrainian children? Even more specifically, what actions can Canada take? How can we help? As the Canadian government, how can we take action? Is it through sanctions? Is it through information sharing? What can we do on our end?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

You mentioned Belarus. We all remember that it's part of...a joint state with Russia. We had reports during the previous years that our kids were found in their so-called camps, where they were trained, educated and so on and so forth. We are tracking this information and certainly sharing it with our partners.

What can be done? There are numerous dimensions of this work. One is certainly about sanctioning. Another is to continue to raise awareness among all partners and the United Nations member states, so that they have this collective response to the Russian violation of human rights. We must do everything possible and impossible to return our children.

You mentioned the Canadian government. We have this initiative, the international coalition for the return of Ukrainian children. We had a very important conference in Montreal. We'll be working to have another one in order to bring as many participants as possible. Only by continuous efforts and by working with partners, imposing sanctions, putting collective pressure on Russian authorities....

The International Criminal Court issued warrants, we remember, regarding Russian officials. All actions that we have on the table should be implemented.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

What do we know about the lives of these children who are being kidnapped?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

We really don't have much information.

What we can do is use different resources. One resource that is always used is OSINT technology. Another thing is that we try to have these connections between relatives, because Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. Another area in which we are working is to engage the church, volunteers, veterans—so, civil society. We use every method that we have at our disposal in different ways to reach....

It's very difficult. It's very difficult, because they have changed their names, their ages, their sexes and so on and so forth—calling a girl a boy and so on and so forth.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

My last question is this: How can we ensure that the Russian officials who ordered and are facilitating these abductions and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children are held accountable whenever the conflict eventually ceases?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

Collect evidence, present it to the court and then bring perpetrators to justice. Justice should prevail.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

Next, we'll go to MP Vandenbeld.

You have six minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much for being here.

I want to start by saying that we all understand on this committee, and as Canadians, that Ukraine is not just fighting for Ukraine. You are fighting for all of us. You are fighting for freedom and democracy globally. We thank you very, very much for doing that.

In that regard, we know that because of the experience you're having, a tremendous amount of innovation is happening in the defence sector in Ukraine. Your needs have changed significantly from the beginning, when they were really just as a recipient of hard materials. You are now probably in a position of sharing expertise and sharing innovations in terms of how warfare is changing. This is on the ground in Ukraine.

I wonder if you could elaborate a little on how the requirements of Ukraine, and the potential contributions of Ukraine in the defence sector, have changed over the course of the war.

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

This war is not only about the amount of equipment we have. It's also about the technological race. Certainly, we are trying to be very effective and very fast in our response to the changing environment on the battlefield. You mentioned the IT industry and the defence IT industry. That is really growing very fast, because it's about our survival. When it comes to defence IT, we are ready to share our knowledge and expertise with our partners who are supporting us on a daily basis by allocating financial resources, by making up enterprises and by working to make Ukraine and other foreign countries more resilient.

We have a number of agreements with partners. We have different initiatives. We have fast tracks when we are talking about just financial donations to certain programs, such as the Danish initiative and other initiatives, but we are also working to produce drones and other equipment in foreign countries that can get them produced faster. That will benefit not only Ukraine but also our foreign partners. We have such agreements with the Canadian government, which were signed during the visit by Prime Minister Carney on August 24.

We are working on that, but this requires a lot of effort and a lot of time.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Because of that, have your needs changed in terms of what you are looking for from countries like Canada? Rather than sending the actual equipment, financial support is more needed now. Is that the case?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

Financial support is certainly needed. It's not only microfinancial support for the financial and economic system of Ukraine in the current situation. It's also to speed up and ramp up production. We need fast solutions, and we need effective solutions immediately. Drone technology changes drastically within a couple of months. In a couple of months, we will need different drones operating on the battlefield. To be able to respond to that, we need to ramp up production.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

At the same time that you're fighting this illegal invasion by Putin's Russia, there's sometimes a sense of needing to wait until the war ends to reconstruct, but what I've heard from a number of Ukrainian parliamentarians and others is this: We cannot wait. We need to start reconstructing even now, in those areas where that's possible, in terms of development but also in terms of the economy and manufacturing. These things have to happen in parallel.

Could you elaborate on that a bit?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

When we're talking about reconstruction, there are a couple of things that should be mentioned. First, we're talking about urgent repairs—for example, energy infrastructure, electrical grids, and so on and so forth. When we're talking about post-war reconstruction, it certainly will be a huge, huge project. It will require the strongest possible international coordination and support. We'll be talking about many industries that should be built as new ones in Ukraine. This work should definitely start immediately. We shouldn't wait, when the war ends with our joint victory, to then start with the planning, and so on and so forth.

In this sense, when we're talking about this megaproject, we should be talking about very good international coordination, where we can coordinate European partners, Canadian partners, Japanese partners and all other partners. We need to build a new Ukraine. We don't need 24 or 25 different models for how the regions will operate or how the industries will operate. We need everything to be well coordinated.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

You mentioned energy infrastructure. I was going to ask about this. We're now in November, and it's getting cold. Can you tell me some of the immediate concerns, with winter coming?

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

Immediate concerns are, certainly, that we need to buy gas abroad, because, as I mentioned, more than 50% of the gas production has been destroyed. We're working on that. The president recently announced an agreement with Greece, which will support us in receiving this gas, starting next year.

Certainly, when we're talking about even Kyiv, the capital city—my father lives in Kyiv—they have shortages of electricity for 12 hours. That's several hours with electricity and then seven to 12 hours without electricity.

This is very urgent. We need spare parts. We need equipment that is being delivered. That's what we're now thinking about on a daily basis.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Do I have more time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

No, you are out of time.

I'll go next to Monsieur Brunelle-Duceppe.

You have the floor for six minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Your Excellency, thank you for joining us today.

You asked us to renew the motion put forward by my colleague Stéphane Bergeron in 2023, and it is duly noted. We will talk with the other parties to see whether it's possible.

You also talked about trading technology for greater drone production capacity. If I'm not mistaken, you've already concluded similar agreements with other countries.

[Andrii Plakhotniuk]

Yes, we have agreements with other countries, with European partners, like Denmark and other countries. Now, we are expanding this co-operation with other partners.

When we're talking about these most urgent needs for Ukraine to fight and win this war, we're talking about huge numbers. We need resources and need to ramp up production, as I mentioned before.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

That means Canada could use those as models to simplify the conclusion of such an agreement.