The Canadian Army’s main artillery gun is the M777 howitzer, firing 155-millimetre shells, more than 30 of which were acquired from the United States starting in 2005.
Earlier this month Zelenskyy released a list of equipment he said the Ukrainian military needed to fight Russia, including 155-millimetre heavy artillery guns and ammunition.
However, unlike some of the weapons already donated to Ukraine, the M777s remain very much in use. In response to Russia’s attack, the government recently deployed one M777 unit to reinforce a Canadian-led NATO battlegroup in Latvia.
Retired lieutenant-general Andrew Leslie, who served as an artillery officer, said Canada could send M777s to Ukraine. However, he suggested the guns would be vulnerable to Russian assaults.
“The M777 gun crews are out in the open and they're towed by light-skinned vehicles,” he said. “So they're very vulnerable to fighter jets to attack helicopters and to relatively sophisticated forces such as the Russians have.”