PRAGUE -- Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the first shipments procured under a Czech initiative to increase supplies of badly needed ammunition in Ukraine are now arriving and will continue to flow.
"This year we will be able to procure and continuously deliver quite a lot of ammunition -- Czech-supplied through different channels -- more than a million of shells to Ukraine so far," Lipavsky said on June 13 in an interview with RFE/RL.
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The Czech Republic has been working for months on a plan to procure artillery shells from countries outside the European Union and provide them to Ukraine, whose troops in recent months have suffered from a debilitating shortage.
Under the initiative, Czech government officials and private companies have worked to source ammunition rounds from around the world.
The leaders of five European NATO states said in a joint statement on May 28 that 15 EU and NATO states have pledged around 1.6 billion euros ($1.7 billion) to fund the project.
Lipavsky said the total number of countries that have pledged to participate in the initiative is 20, including five countries that have already sent money only to finance purchases.
The total number grew to 21 on June 14, Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochova said, when Luxembourg joined the inititative with a pledge to make financial contributions. She did not say how much Luxembourg would contribute.
"We are now able to make deals and to bring ammunition from different countries and then send it to Ukraine so it can…rightfully defend itself from Russian aggression," Lipavsky said in the interview.
He declined to provide specifics, saying it’s up to the individual countries to announce that deals have been fulfilled.
He said deals are currently being completed in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, and Canada -- the five countries that have agreed to finance the purchases.
Asked about financial issues in some countries, Lipavsky said he hopes to “move from pledges and sympathies” to getting deals signed and financed.
“We know that the Ukraine needs a lot of large-caliber ammunition, and there's...a big opportunity,” he said. “So we hope that we will be [striking] more of the deals.”
The top Czech diplomat also spoke about the peace summit on Ukraine taking place this weekend in Switzerland, saying it is part of the bigger task of securing Ukraine and Europe as a whole.
“We have to strive for peace,” he said.
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Czech Foreign Minister Working To Curb Movement Of Russian Diplomats
Czech President Petr Pavel will be joined at the summit by the head of the Czech National Nuclear Safety Authority "because nuclear and radiation safety is one of our priority [topics]," he said.
Lipavsky acknowledged that some countries have said there can be no progress without Russia's participation, but he noted that the peace summit wouldn't be necessary if there had been no Russian aggression in the first place.
At this point, he said he sees “no will to stop the horrendous attacks on Ukraine, which are continuing daily and nightly.”
“Every war ends with negotiations and with diplomacy. That's what we know for sure,” he said. “If Russia is ready to acknowledge that the aggression won't be successful, then probably they will be ready to come to the negotiation table.”
It also must change from seeking the total destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and acknowledge that Ukraine is a sovereign state with international recognized borders, he added.
The foreign minister also said that the European Union must show Russia that its efforts to increase hybrid threats -- those involving both cyberspace and disinformation campaigns -- won’t be tolerated.
He said foreign ministers from eight EU countries have sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell asking him to curb Russian diplomats' movements in the Schengen Area over their concern that the free movement of the diplomats facilitates "malign activities."
The measure is needed because the movement of Russian diplomats and their family members lays the groundwork for threats in cyberspace and other "sabotages and subterfuges," he told RFE/RL.
"These hybrid threats were increasing, and the European Union needs to show Russia that this won’t be tolerated,” he said.