The last time Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Canada, he was a relatively unknown leader fresh off an election win, focused on his showcasing his country’s efforts to make democratic reform and integrate with Europe.
Much has changed since July 2019.
A crowd of around 100 people waited outside Parliament on Thursday morning, waiting to see Zelenskyy’s motorcade arrive prior to his historic address.
“I know it will be a very impassioned speech and he will make the case for why Canadians and the government need to keep supporting Ukraine in any way they can,” said Karen Wigston, an Ottawa resident who routinely protests the war outside the Russian Embassy.
Marii Nepop moved to Canada from Ukraine four years ago, but said much of her family still lives in Ukraine. She felt it was important to come to Parliament on Friday morning to show support for continued aide to Ukraine.
“Because with this help, with unity between the countries who understand what’s really happening in Ukraine is the only way that this war can end,” she said.
For her family back in Ukraine, Nepop says they are trying to go about their normal lives as best they can but 19 months of full-scale war is taking its toll.
“It’s still very stressful because especially now, these last two days, for example, Ukraine has been bombed again, it’s like 40 rockets. They have the drones all the time,” Nepop said.
“So the stress is building up. So they’re strong, but it definitely needs to turn soon because this trauma is only getting deeper with each day.”
After his arrival at Parliament on Friday, Zelenskyy and Trudeau met privately ahead of the president’s address. Prior to the meeting, Trudeau told reporters it was an extraordinary privilege to welcome Zelenskyy back to Ottawa.
“This is yet another opportunity to for us to sit-down and talk about all the things we need to do together to make sure the rule of law is supported, supporting everything Ukraine is doing and also make sure we’re standing very, very strongly against Russia,” Trudeau said.
Zelenskyy began the meeting by thanking Trudeau and Canada for its continued support with arms, humanitarian aide and accepting Ukrainian fleeing the conflict since the beginning of the war.
“I have a lot more words and thanks from Ukrainians to you and your beautiful country. I have no time to see it, but I know it’s beautiful,” Zelenskyy joked.
“I think after the victory, and I know it will be a common victory, then of course we will come.”
They are expected to talk about what more Canada can do to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, 19 months after rockets starting raining down on Kyiv.
Zelenskyy arrived in Ottawa late Thursday from the United Nations General Assembly in New York – an instantly recognizable wartime leader in his signature olive green, focused on his country’s survival.
“He’s become a hero to a great many people, certainly to me,” Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador the UN, told reporters Thursday in New York.
“He’s a man of great dedication and great personal courage.”
Rae noted Canada’s significant contributions to the war effort so far – taking in thousands of Ukrainians who are fleeing the war, along with providing more than $1.8 billion in military aid, equipment and supplies.
Defence Minister Bill Blair met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov in Ottawa on Friday morning as well.
Trudeau has made the case for helping Ukraine at international gatherings including the G7, G20, NATO and at this week’s UN General Assembly.
On Wednesday, he called for a complete withdrawal of Russia’s troops and the creation of a peace pact that “respects the UN Charter, is based in international law and preserves Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
His remarks come a month after Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba asked Canada to use its “diplomatic muscle” to sell Kyiv’s plan to other countries, and for Ottawa to increase its anti-landmine support and extend military funding beyond the next year.
Today in Ottawa, Zelenskyy is set to address Parliament for the second time since the invasion began in February 2022.
In his virtual address in March of that year, the Ukrainian leader’s main request to Parliament was for NATO to impose a no-fly zone, along with pleas for cash to help with humanitarian efforts. He told members of Parliament that 97 children had been killed at the time.
Just shy of two years later, more than 9,000 civilians have been reported killed, including more than 500 children – though the UN agency that is tracking casualties warns the actual figures are likely much higher.
Russian airstrikes continue as Ukrainian forces try to break through the front lines in a months-long counteroffensive that is moving more slowly than many had hoped.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, Yuliya Kovaliv, told a Wednesday panel that Ukraine wants more military aid faster to stop Moscow from replenishing its war chest.
“The reason why it’s moving so slowly is that Russia used this moment for the last nine months, being on Ukrainian territory (and) occupying it, to build fortifications, to mine the land,” Kovaliv said at a University of Ottawa event.
“To move on this battlefield to liberate each and every village, it takes very careful operations,” she said.
“Each and every day when our partners are still hesitating, or some bureaucracy (is) moving slower to make this eventual decision of the military support (and) delivering (it) to Ukraine, unfortunately, Russia is using this each and every day to occupy, to conscript more, to produce more weapons.”
She added that Ukraine anticipates Russia will bomb civilian infrastructure this coming winter, as it had done last year. Trudeau has accused Russia of weaponizing energy and food.
At the panel, Kerry Buck, who served as Canada’s ambassador to the NATO military alliance from 2015 to 2019, said Ottawa has done a good job training Ukrainian forces, since Canada lacks a large military-industrial sector from which it could supply weapons.
But she said it’s clear that Zelenskyy needs more arms to fend off Russia.
“Ukraine must win, and I don’t think anyone is doing enough yet,” she said.
“The last year and a half has been a test of the international community, to see if they can respond with sufficient unity and purpose to protect the values that the post-war order is built on.”
Zelenskyy himself warned the United Nations Security Council this week that Russia intends to destroy the postwar order.
He called Moscow’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and the 2022 full-scale attack “criminal and unprovoked aggression” by a terrorist state, and asked the United Nations to strip its Security Council members – including Russia – of their veto.
“The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into weapons against you – against the international rules-based order,” he told the United Nations on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy is planning to travel to Toronto to meet with business leaders and attend an event, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
With files from The Canadian Press