Canada’s NASAMS for Ukraine delayed by US funding issues

The NASAMS air defense system, which Canada purchased for Ukraine, is currently stuck in the United States.

This information was reported by the Edmonton Journal.

The $406 million order was reportedly made more than a year ago and still hasn’t been completed.

“The Americans have to secure the funding in order to finalize the contracts (with manufacturer Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace),” said Minister of National Defence of Canada Bill Blair.

Without a piggybacked deal to acquire NASAMS as part of the normal procurement process, it would take years, Blair said.

“We’ve tried to expedite that,” Blair said. “Unfortunately the Americans ran into some challenges in their own funding envelope.”

The Canadian Minister of Defense added that all parties understand the importance of implementing this project.

“(Ukraine) said they want us to continue to proceed with the acquisition of those NASAMS missiles as quickly as possible and we’re doing everything as quickly as possible to make that happen.” he said.

Recall that the purchase by Canada of the NASAMS Military air defense system was reported in January 2023.

Then the time frame for the transmission of the system was not specified. Then Militarnyi assumed that given the words about the purchase of these systems in the United States, they would be made from scratch at Raytheon Technologies. In that scenario, production might experience delays because of a backlog in manufacturing.

Recently, it was reported that the Norwegian government was putting forth a proposal to the country’s parliament to approve the acquisition of additional NASAMS air defense systems for Ukraine.

The government proposed the acquisition of ten additional new launchers and four control points from Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace (KDA).

The cost of ordering these elements of the NASAMS air defense system is NOK 3.45 billion. They plan to order equipment in addition to equipment already transferred to Ukraine within the framework of military assistance.