Andrej Babis, ANO leader and presumptive next Czech Prime Minister, spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on the phone at 12pm today, expressing his support for Ukraine and his wish for the war to end as soon as possible, he wrote on social media, adding that he could visit Ukraine next year.
“We met three times in the past, most recently in November 2019 in Kyiv. I am glad that he contacted me and described the current situation,” wrote Babis, whose ANO party convincingly won last weekend’s parliamentary elections.
“I expressed our support to him and our wish for the war to end as soon as possible. We also agreed that if everything works out, I will visit Ukraine next year and we will discuss everything in person,” he said.
Babis is negotiating a coalition with Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the Motorists. At a press conference on Wednesday, he said that if ANO forms the next government, it will not give money directly from the state budget to Ukraine for weapons. He added that the Czech Republic has been helping through the European Union, and Czech arms companies can export to Ukraine without any problems.
One unresolved question is what will happen to the so-called Czech ammunition initiative, by which artillery shells are purchased by allies on the open market and supplied to Ukraine, which has now been resisting Russian invasion for over three and a half years. Babis previously raised the prospect of cancelling the initiative, or transferring it to NATO.
According to outgoing Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, NATO does not have the appropriate apparatus to manage the initiative.
Last year Ukraine received 1.5 million artillery shells via the Czech-led initiative, plus a further 1.1 million this year so far. In total, 3.5 million pieces of large-calibre ammunition have been supplied.
