Norway donates $153 million to Czech-led purchases of ammunition for Ukraine

Norway will donate up to 1.6 billion Norwegian crowns ($153 million) for a Czech-led initiative to buy ammunition for Ukraine from third countries, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement on March 7.

"Ukraine urgently needs large quantities of artillery ammunition to withstand the Russian war of aggression," Stoere said, per Reuters.

Earlier it emerged that Ukraine's allies have provided almost all of the funding required to carry out the Czech initiative to purchase hundreds of thousands of artillery shells.

Artillery shells can be delivered to Ukraine in a matter of weeks once almost all of the funds are received. The exact timing will be determined by contractual obligations and delivery schedules, which may shift.

A separate meeting of EU defence and foreign ministers is expected later this week to discuss the details.

Bloomberg estimates that Ukraine requires at least 200,000 rounds of ammunition per month to continue its fight against Russian troops. On average, they fire three to five times more shells per day than Ukrainian forces can.

Czech President Petr Pavel stated at the Munich Security Conference that the Czech Republic had found up to 800,000 projectiles of NATO standard calibre that it could send to Ukraine in a few weeks if it received the funding for delivery.

The Czech Defence Ministry stated earlier that it was coordinating efforts and seeking previous commitments from Canada and Denmark, as well as other countries that preferred to remain unnamed.

The Netherlands publicly announced its participation after allocating €250 million for ammunition procurement, as did Belgium, which will donate €200 million. France, Germany and Latvia also expressed support.