Germany allocates 300 million euros to buy ammunition for Ukraine

According to TASS news agency on March 22, Bloomberg reported that Germany plans to allocate 300 million euros to join the Czech Republic's initiative to purchase artillery shells from a third country to aid Ukraine.

Accordingly, 300 million Euros (equivalent to 326 million USD) will be enough to cover the cost of about 180,000 artillery shells.

Earlier, Chief of the German Chancellor's Office Steffen Hebestreit said that Germany will join the Czech Republic's initiative to purchase at least 800,000 artillery shells for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in countries outside the European Union, and will allocate for this "an amount of hundreds of millions of euros".

On February 17, at the Munich Security Conference, Czech President Petr Pavel said that Prague had found the possibility of purchasing hundreds of thousands of artillery shells from third countries for Ukraine, if there were enough funds to implement this initiative. Previously, the Czech Republic was dissatisfied with the European Union's failure to fulfill its promise to provide Kiev with 1 million artillery shells between March 2023 and March 2024, so it asked Brussels to start buying artillery shells for Ukraine worldwide, especially in Türkiye, South Africa and South Korea.

“The Czech initiative will help Ukraine stabilize the front and regain the initiative,” said Nico Lange, former chief of staff of the German Defense Ministry.

Unlike the United States, France, and Germany, which have largely focused on increasing domestic production to supply Ukraine, Czech officials have focused on sourcing existing equipment. The Czech Republic has quietly made contacts around the world, securing purchase contracts and negotiating exports from many manufacturing countries. So far, the Czech Republic has secured funding for the first batch of about 300,000 artillery shells.

NATO and EU officials have publicly supported the Czech initiative in recent days./.