A senior NATO official has expressed cautious optimism that the Czech Republic can continue an initiative to supply Kyiv with large-caliber ammunition from global suppliers despite the recent change of government in Prague.
Reuters has reported this.
Before taking office, the new Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš promised to cut military aid to Ukraine from the state budget and suggested that his government might end the Czech-led ammunition program.
He said the program is non-transparent and too expensive, but did not express a clear position on the future of the project, which has strong support from the president.
"I have no final confirmation (of whether) the initiative continues, but there are some positive signals coming from Prague," Major General Maik Keller, deputy commander of NATO's Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), told Reuters at the mission's headquarters in Wiesbaden.
"There might be no more Czech funding for the initiative, which there was to a limited extent in the past. But the vast majority of the funding is coming from other partners," he said.
NSATU is also working on the development of a new mission in the Czech Republic
NSATU has been coordinating international military assistance to Kyiv for about a year now.
Keller praised the Czech initiative for its impact, noting that this year it has provided 1.8 million pieces of artillery ammunition - 43% of the total ammunition delivered to Kyiv and about 70% of Soviet-caliber ammunition.
"So that's quite a significant and important initiative. And that's why we are so keen on continuing it," he said.
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