FT: Czech-led Ukraine ammunition initiative loses half its backers

The number of countries participating in a Czech-led initiative to purchase ammunition for Ukraine has reportedly fallen by half since Prime Minister Andrej Babiš returned to office in December on a pledge not to make Czech citizens pay for weapons supplied to Kyiv, Financial Times reports.

According to Czech President Petr Pavel, only nine countries are currently financing the initiative, compared with as many as 18 last year. The development has raised concerns about burden-sharing and the future of the project launched by the previous pro-European government with strong backing from Pavel, a former NATO commander.

“The initiative is still working, but the new difficulty is that only about nine member states are contributing financially,” Pavel told the Financial Times. “This initiative has been delivering up to 50 per cent of all large calibre ammunition to the Ukrainians, so in this sense it cannot be replaced easily by anything else.”

Since 2024, Prague has coordinated the supply of more than four million large-calibre artillery shells to Ukraine to help replenish Kyiv’s diminishing stockpiles and support its defense against Russia’s invasion.

Pavel said the future of the initiative should be discussed during the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara in July.

While Pavel’s office declined to identify which countries had withdrawn from the program, a Western military official said Germany and several Nordic countries remained involved. However, the official noted that “some countries now feel that it is strange to pay for something that is not even properly supported by the ruling politicians of the lead country”.

Babiš, speaking separately to the Financial Times, said his government was prioritizing domestic spending as Czech households face rising energy costs linked to the Iran conflict.

“We don’t have money, so we are receiving money from other countries and then we deliver [the ammunition],” he said.

During last year’s election campaign, Babiš threatened to halt the ammunition initiative altogether, criticizing what he described as a lack of transparency regarding the use of funds and the extent to which the project benefited Prague-based Czechoslovak Group (CSG), one of Europe’s крупнейших производителей боеприпасов.

CSG chief executive Michal Strnad said the new government had initially left the initiative “in limbo” due to unresolved legal concerns.

“Some of the donating countries basically said that they are not interested in financing it [the initiative] anymore, so they buy directly from us or from some other suppliers,” Strnad said. “The initiative is not dead, it’s still working, but it’s a bit slow.”

By Vafa Guliyeva