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The number of countries participating in a Czech-led initiative to buy ammunition for Ukraine has halved since Prime Minister Andrej Babiš returned to office in December on a pledge not to make Czech citizens pay for Ukraine’s weapons.
Only nine countries are now funding the initiative, down from as many as 18 last year, according to Czech President Petr Pavel, a former Nato commander. The trend is raising concerns over burden sharing and the future of a project launched by the previous pro-EU government with Pavel’s strong backing.
“The initiative is still working, but the new difficulty is that only about nine member states are contributing financially,” Pavel told the FT. “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 masterminded the supply of more than 4mn large-calibre artillery shells to Kyiv to help replenish Ukraine’s dwindling ammunition stockpiles and sustain its defence against Russia’s invasion.
Pavel said the initiative’s future should be among the issues discussed at the Nato summit in Ankara in July.
Pavel’s office declined to identify the countries that had recently withdrawn from the initiative. A western military official said Germany and some Nordic nations remained among the participants, but “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 separately told the FT that his government was prioritising limited public funds for Czech citizens as households struggle with energy bills following the Iran conflict, rather than support for Ukraine. “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 stop the ammunition initiative altogether, criticising it for an alleged lack of transparency over how the money was used, and the extent to which it directly benefited Prague-based Czechoslovak Group. CSG, one of Europe’s largest ammunition producers, has acted as the Czech government’s main corporate partner in sourcing as well as recommissioning artillery shells from non-Nato countries on behalf of Ukraine’s western backers.
Michal Strnad, owner and chief executive of CSG, said the Babiš administration had also left the initiative in limbo for a few months after taking office because there was “some legal issue which the new government didn’t like, so it took some time to clarify”.
However, Strnad said it was too early to predict whether Kyiv would ultimately receive fewer shells this year from its western allies, also because some countries could now be using alternative channels to supply ammunition to Ukraine.
“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”.
