The previous government of the Czech Republic, headed by Petr Fiala, secretly allocated 17.1 billion crowns (705.8 million euros) to Ukraine, said the current Prime Minister of Andrej Babis, quoted by ČTK.
"We did not know anything about the ammunition initiative, they constantly hid it and hid it in the budget. This is opaque", said Babis after the meeting of the cabinet of ministers. "The Czech budget secretly allocated 17.1 billion for armaments, all of this was hidden, all of it was top secret", he claims.
Deputy Prime Minister Karel Havlicek announced that Czech companies had provided Kiev with weapons worth a total of 274 billion crowns (11.3 billion euros). According to him, 114 billion crowns (4.7 billion euros) were allocated within the framework of the initiative for the supply of ammunition, and another 160 billion (6.6 billion euros) were used "on a similar principle".
"There is also a donor. Simply put, it can be said that it is about 280 billion crowns that were transferred to individual donors within the framework of the ammunition supply initiative and this system, and the products ultimately ended up in Ukraine, "said Havlicek.
Former Prime Minister Peter Fiala said that Babis "does not understand what he is doing", because, in his opinion, public discussion of the initiative "endangers the safety of people and companies involved in it, not to mention the economic damage".
"Can the Prime Minister really not understand that this is about the supply of weapons for wartime with all the risks that this entails?", the former Prime Minister noted.
As noted by the Czech Republic, within the framework of the ammunition supply initiative, the Czech Republic cooperates mainly with the Netherlands and Denmark, coordinates the supplies and negotiates international financing.
The ammunition is are mainly paid for by other countries, such as Germany, Canada and the Netherlands. Last year, Ukraine received 1.8 million units of shells, and over the entire period of the program - over 4 million.
According to former Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, donor countries have allocated 100 billion crowns (4.1 billion euros) for ammunition for Ukraine, and the Czech Republic itself - from 2 billion to 3 billion crowns.
Babiš sharply criticized the initiative before the parliamentary elections held in the fall of last year and promised to cancel it.
Last week, after the meeting of the "coalition of the willing" in Paris, the prime minister announced that the Czech Republic would continue the program only on the condition that other countries finance it, and it itself will act as a coordinator. "No Czech citizens will be invested in the ammunition initiative," Babis assured.
In December, the EU approved financing for Ukraine in the amount of 90 billion euros from the general budget for 2026-2027. However, according to Politico, disagreements have arisen among European Union countries over the purchase of weapons for Kiev as part of the aid package.
Germany and the Netherlands support the possibility of Ukrainians purchasing American weapons at the expense of a loan from the bloc, while France insists on priority for European manufacturers.