The number of countries participating in the Czech initiative to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition has halved. Photo: Reuters
Nine countries withdrew from the Czech initiative, they no longer want to supply ammunition to Ukraine
The number of countries participating in the Czech initiative to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition has halved from 18 to nine since Prime Minister Andrej Babiš returned to office last December with a promise that the Czech Republic would no longer invest its own money in the initiative, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Tuesday.
“The initiative is still working, but the new problem is that only about nine member states contribute financially. (…) This initiative provided the Ukrainians with up to 50 percent of all large-caliber ammunition, so it cannot be easily replaced,” Czech President Petr Pavel told the Financial Times. He added that the future of the initiative should be one of the topics of the July NATO summit in Ankara.
However, Pavel did not reveal which countries had recently withdrawn from the initiative. Meanwhile, a Western military official explained that “some countries now think it’s strange to pay for something that the leading politicians of the leading country do not support enough”.
The Czech Republic proposed the initiative in 2024
The Czech Republic proposed the purchase of artillery missiles for Ukraine from third countries in early 2024 in response to the lack of production capacity in the EU. Since then, several countries have joined the initiative, including Slovenia, and more than four million pieces of ammunition have already been supplied to Ukraine.
STA is still waiting for the response from the Ministry of Defense regarding Slovenia’s participation in the initiative.
Babiš repeatedly criticized the initiative during the election campaign. After being elected to the position of Prime Minister, he said that Prague will continue to implement the initiative, but that it will act in the role of coordinator and will no longer invest its own money in the initiative.
The Czech Prime Minister told the Financial Times that his government is prioritizing limited public funds for Czech citizens as households struggle with high energy costs due to the conflict in the Middle East. “We don’t have money, so we receive funds from other countries and then deliver (the ammunition),” he added.
