A senior Czech Republic official on Friday said his government wants to kick off a second iteration of the international purchasing project they initiated. During 2024 Prague’s initiative delivered about 1.5 million vitally needed rounds of artillery ammunition to Ukraine’s military, one-third of it of the critical 155mm howitzer caliber. However, a top opposition politician said that if elected his government will have nothing to do with it. Announced in February 2024 and kicked off in June, the Czech-led shells-for-Ukraine initiative drummed up more than $1.5 billion in donations and commitments to buy artillery ammunition from Indian and South African producers as well as European suppliers in Slovakia, Italy, Germany, Spain, Norway, and France.
Contributors included Canada, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belgium, Finland, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain and Slovenia.
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Coming online in the wake of the US five-month embargo on arms deliveries to Ukraine, the multinational shell-shopping operation helped Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned armed forces hold Russian attacks to limited gains in the second half of 2024.
Czechia’s Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) on Saturday: “We are currently examining how we can finance the new ammunition initiative and will then see how many rounds of ammunition we can get for the money.”
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He did not, however, want to commit to a specific quantity of ammunition for delivery in 2025, the German news agency dpa reported.
In the first half of 2024, Moscow’s forces held deep reserves of artillery ammunition, while low rates of European production combined with the US block on military aid to Ukraine, meant that Russian gunners often had a ten to one advantage over their Ukrainian counterparts. By early 2025 the imbalance was reduced in some sectors to virtual parity according to many battlefield accounts.The Financial Times reported on Sunday that plans to continue artillery ammunition sourcing for Ukraine by the current pro-Ukraine government in Czechia would likely grind to a halt should opposition politician Andrej Babiš, the head of the ANO political party come to power. A specific date for parliamentary elections has not been announced, but legally the vote can take place no later than October.
The FT said the ANO leadership opposes continued strong Czech support to Ukrainian fighting capacity including continued major ammunition deliveries. The article quoted ANO deputy leader Karel Havlíček as saying: “We have to stop the current way [Prague is supporting Ukraine]… We have information from the military sector that the quality is not ideal and that it is just extremely expensive.”
The polls suggest that ANO is on track to win the Chamber of Deputies elections with 34% of the vote according to January data published by Radio Prague International. The ruling Together coalition which comprises Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats and TOP09 trail at about 18%.
A center-right party with increasing populist appeal to lower-income and working-class voters, the ANO leadership has called for Russia and Ukraine to sign a peace deal and for Ukraine to make concessions to Russia. Babiš, during an unsuccessful presidential election campaign in 2023, said Czech support to Ukraine was unsustainable.
Prague’s support to Ukraine to date has been strong. Aside from the 2024 artillery ammunition initiative, Czech assistance to Ukraine has included the transfer of more than 100 upgraded Soviet-era T-72 tanks, along with armored personnel carriers, artillery pieces, anti-aircraft cannon, artillery rocket systems, and munitions.
The Czech arms manufacturer CSG signed an agreement with the Ukrainian company Ukrainska Bronetechnika in October to manufacture 155mm shell and other munitions starting in 2025. The joint venture will, provided it goes ahead, produce 100,000 shells at a Ukrainian facility in 2025 and 300,000 in 2026, a CSG statement said.
The German arms production giant Rheinmetall announced in December that work on a project to produce 155mm ammunition in Ukraine was “well advanced,” and that the joint venture for the manufacturing project planning tens of thousands of rounds annually would be controlled by Rheinmetall and represented the largest overseas ammunition manufacturing project in the corporation’s history.According to a report by the Kyiv-based news platform Euromaidanpress on Saturday, Western investment in Ukraine’s defense sector has delivered “striking” results.
Ukraine’s artillery and mortar round production increased 25-fold in the first half of 2024 in comparison with the whole of 2022. Ukraine’s defense firms now employ around 300,000 people, almost equivalent to half the size of the entire European defense industry’s workforce, the report said. The main component of Ukrainian battlefield firepower – drones – has surged even more. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) received 300,000 models of all types in 2023, with the figure jumping to 4 million by 2024, Euromaidan said, which pretty much aligns with official Ukrainian government figures.In a January interview with Polish media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that currently Ukraine meets one-third of its weapon needs domestically, and called on allies to invest in producing arms and ammunition in Ukraine.
Denmark became the first NATO country to buy weapons produced in Ukraine for the AFU in 2024, committing €590 million ($608 million) largely for the manufacture and purchase of the 2S22 Bohdana 155mm howitzer. Subsequently Lithuania financed Ukrainian manufacture of a jet-propelled long-range drone called Palianytsyia.
In 2024, outside funding sources for Ukraine’s defense industry included €125 million ($129 million), also from Denmark through its national Ukraine Fund, €20 million ($20.6 million) from Sweden, €2.7 million ($2.8 million) from Iceland, and €390 million ($402 million) from interest on frozen Russian assets, according to the Euromaidan report.
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