Half of countries withdraw from Czech ammunition initiative for Ukraine
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Participation in a Czech-led initiative to purchase ammunition for Ukraine has fallen from 18 countries to nine since Prime Minister Andrej Babis took office in December 2025, Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview published May 26.
Pavel told the Financial Times that the initiative, which has played a major role in supplying Ukraine with artillery ammunition, remains operational despite declining financial support from participating countries.
"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."
Babis, who campaigned in part on an anti-Ukraine platform, pledged not to make Czech citizens pay for weapons for Ukraine after taking office in December alongside coalition partners skeptical of military aid to Kyiv.
The ammunition initiative came close to being cancelled after Babis entered government, but it ultimately remained in place under pressure from foreign allies.
Pavel's office declined to name the countries that had withdrawn from the effort. A Western military official told the Financial Times that Germany and several Nordic countries are still participating, but added that "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."
Launched in early 2024 amid severe ammunition shortages in Ukraine, the Czech-led initiative has been credited with helping stabilize Ukraine's ammunition supplies at a critical stage of the war.
To date, Czechia has delivered more than 3 million artillery shells under the initiative, including 1.5 million in 2024 and an additional 1.8 million in 2025. Prague has contracts to deliver around 1 million more rounds in 2026, according to the Czech Defense Ministry.
