PRAGUE, March 7. /TASS/. Funds for the purchase of 800,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine inn thirds countries have been raised, Czech President Petr Pavel said.
"Funds for buying munitions have been raised," the indes.cz portal quoted him as saying. Thus, the Czech Republic’s initiative has proved to be successful.
Addressing the Munich Security Conference on February 17, Czech President Petr Pavel said that Prague had found a possibility to buy hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds for Ukraine in third countries in case funds for that were available.
The Politico newspaper said earlier that the Czech Republic, sullen over the European Union’s failure to keep its promise to supply Kiev with one million rounds from March 2023 to March 2024, demanded that the European Union begin buying munitions for Ukraine in third countries, in particular in Turkey, South Africa, and South Korea.
Czech Governmental Envoy for the Reconstruction of Ukraine Tomas Kopecny said on March 4 that Belgium, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States had joined the Czech initiative. Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said during a phone call with her Czech counterpart, Petr Fiala that Vilnius would support Prague’s initiative. According to Kopecny, it is planned to buy at least 800,000 munitions, but the figure may change. It was reported on March 7 that Norway joined the Czech initiative.
According to Pavel, the initiative was supported by 18 countries and Ukraine will receive the munitions within weeks.
Now, in his words, the Czech government was working on necessary documents to purchase the munitions and will coordinate the implementation of the initiative with those who joined it. "The Czech side will then notify all participating [in fund raising] countries about the schedule [of the initiative implementation] and about our further steps," he said.