Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has said that the ammunition supply programme for Ukraine under the Czech initiative can continue, but his country will not invest its funds there.
“I have decided, with the agreement of coalition partners, that we will not cancel the ammunition initiative. The project will continue and the Czech Republic will be the coordinator. No funds of Czech citizens will be invested in the munitions initiative,” Babiš wrote on social network X on 6 January.
Andrej Babiš, who took over the Czech government in December, had previously promised to cancel the Czech munitions initiative to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition, saying it was accompanied by “corruption and abuse.” He later toned down the rhetoric and said it could have been handled at the NATO level.
In December, the previous Czech government said it had completed the transfer of 1.8 million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, which it had promised to provide in 2025.
In February 2024, the Czech Republic announced that it had found sources of hundreds of thousands of shells for Ukraine from abroad: the shells in 155 mm and 122 mm calibre. Such stocks were found in an unnamed country outside the EU.
Subsequently, Prague found more than one million ammunition as part of the project. About 20 countries joined the Czech initiative to buy ammunition for Ukraine.
The first ammunition under the Czech initiative started to be delivered in June 2024. According to the country’s government, during 2024, Ukraine received about 1.5 million ammunition, one third of which was of 155 mm calibre.