The initiative led by the Czech Republic to supply ammunition to Ukraine and support its defense against Russia is running out of steam. According to the Financial Times (FT), half of the contributing countries would have left the coalition. Only 9 countries would still participate compared to 18 last year, Czech President Petr Pavel told the British newspaper. Launched in 2024 by the former Czech government and the current pro-European president, it allows Czech companies to buy shells around the world, thanks to funding from willing European countries.
Germany and certain Nordic countries still contributors
But the new Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, returned to power last December, has distanced himself from the support for kyiv shown by his predecessor Petr Fiala. Andrej Babis was critical of the initiative, denouncing, during his electoral campaign, a lack of transparency on the use of funds and going so far as to threaten to abandon it. The Prime Minister also promised not to make citizens pay for Ukrainian weapons and favored public aid for the Czechs, faced with high energy costs due to the war in Iran, he declared in Financial Times.
The lack of commitment shown by Prague towards Ukraine has cooled some contributing countries. “Some countries now think it’s strange to pay for something that isn’t even truly supported by the political leadership of the lead country,” a military official told Reuters. Financial Times. If Czech President Petr Pavel did not specify the countries having left the program, the military source informs that Germany and certain Nordic countries would still be involved.
The initiative “is not dead”
Because the European allies know, the munitions initiative is crucial for Ukraine. It “made it possible to supply up to 50% of all large caliber ammunition to the Ukrainians”, recalls Petr Pavel in the FT. In two years, more than 4 million large-caliber shells were delivered to kyiv, making it possible to reduce the significant gap with Russian artillery. In 2024, 1.5 million shells were supplied, then 1.8 million last year. For 2026, 500,000 munitions have already been sent to Ukraine, according to the Czech Defense Ministry, which adds that a million more will be delivered during the year.
As of October 2025, 4.5 billion dollars (3.9 billion euros) in donations had been collected since the launch of the program to finance the purchase of ammunition according to the Czech government. To date, funding of “almost a billion euros” has been obtained for the year 2026, underlines the Ministry of Defense.
The cause is therefore not definitively lost. The initiative “is not dead, it still works, but it’s a little slow” wants to believe Michal Strnad, general director of Czechoslovak Group, one of the largest munitions producers in Europe and partner of the Czech government in this initiative. For him, even if the program were to be stopped, ammunition would continue to arrive in Ukraine, with European countries using alternative circuits and purchasing directly from shell suppliers without going through the coalition box. According to the Czech president, quoted in the FT, the fate of the initiative should be at the heart of discussions at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on July 7 and 8.
