Canada intends to transfer a modern air defense system, NASAMS, to Ukraine early next year.

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said this in his interview with CBC News.

According to him, last year Canada joined the order placed by the United States for the production of 10 NASAMS systems.

Raytheon, the company that manufactures them, assures that it will transfer these weapons systems by the end of this year.

“Ours will be among that tranche of deliveries and we’ll immediately get it to Ukraine,” Blair said.

He clarified that NASAMS should arrive in Ukraine in early 2025.

Canada announced its intention to transfer the NASAMS air defense system to Ukraine, worth more than $300 million, on January 10, 2023.

The original arrangements stipulated that Canada would reimburse the United States for the full cost of the new NASAMS system, while the United States would enter into a direct contract with Ukraine for the supply of these weapons.

This was supposed to allow Canada to circumvent the requirement to obtain U.S. permission to re-export NASAMS to Ukraine.

However, the project faced a number of bureaucratic obstacles that slowed its implementation.

NASAMS is produced by a consortium of the American corporation Raytheon Technologies and the Norwegian group Kongsberg.

This system was the first ground-based system to use the AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile).