The Czech President said this in an interview with ARD.
“Together with our Prime Minister Petr Fiala, I assume that the first 180,000 units of ammunition will be delivered (to Ukraine - ed.) in June, and there are already contracts for a further five or six-digit number of shells,” he said.
Answering the question of why the deliveries are taking so long, the Czech president noted that one of the reasons is competition, delays in funding and a long decision-making process.
“Throughout the war in Ukraine, the West has been very cautious in its support. From the very beginning, the goal was to prevent the conflict from escalating, and each new stage was discussed for a long time before it was implemented. If we had skipped this period of discussion and risk assessment, Ukraine would have received this assistance several months, perhaps even years earlier, and the situation could have been different,” he explained.
The Czech president added that he hopes that Ukraine's partners will draw conclusions and provide Ukraine with assistance “as much as possible and as soon as possible to prevent Ukraine from losing even more territory and human lives.” He emphasized that Ukraine has shown great resilience in the face of extraordinary difficulties, so it is important for other countries to support it to “make it clear to the Russian aggressor that there is no point in continuing the war, that Russia will not achieve any further military success.”
On February 17, it became known that the Czech Republic had found sources abroad for hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds that it could deliver to Ukraine in a matter of weeks.
The Netherlands publicly announced their participation by allocating 100 million euros for the purchase of ammunition. France will also join the initiative to procure ammunition for Ukraine outside the EU. Additionally, Germany and Norway have expressed support for the initiative.
On February 22, media reported that Canada was ready to allocate up to $22 million for shells for Ukraine. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Kroo also announced that the country would finance the Czech initiative with €200 million.
On March 2, the Czech Republic announced that they would be able to make the first deliveries of ammunition to Kyiv within a few weeks.
Later, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė stated that her country would support the Czech Republic's multilateral initiative to purchase and transfer artillery ammunition to Ukraine.
On March 8, Czech President Petr Pavel announced the completion of fundraising for the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine. The government clarified that it was only the first batch of 300,000 shells.
On March 12, the Czech Republic announced the possibility of purchasing another 200,000 artillery shells for Ukraine in addition to the 300,000 already financed.
The Czech government said that artillery shells, which will be purchased at the initiative of Prague, are likely to start arriving in Ukraine in June.
Germany will provide Ukraine with 180,000 artillery rounds as part of the Czech-led ammunition purchase plan.