KYIV – Outgunned Ukrainian troops fighting Russian forces will start to receive artillery rounds under a Czech-led initiative to boost supplies by June at the latest, a senior Czech official said on March 13.

“First deliveries from the so-called ‘Czech ammunition initiative’ can be expected in Ukraine in June at the latest,” Czech National Security Adviser Tomas Pojar told Reuters.

The Czech confirmation on the timeline follows a comment on expected ammunition delivery in the “foreseeable future” from Kyiv’s top diplomat earlier on March 13.

Prague located 800,000 artillery rounds in third countries earlier in 2024 to supply to Ukraine and says it raised enough funding from allies to purchase a first batch of 300,000 on March 8.

“This week, we are going to contact our Czech colleagues, when they will introduce a detailed supply plan on how this is going to work,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told a news conference in Kyiv.

The delivery of the shells under the initiative will be staggered over the year and initial deliveries “will not take many months”, he said.

Work was under way to secure funding for similar other initiatives, he added.

“The Czech initiative is great but it’s far from sufficient,” said Mr Kuleba. “If, besides the Czech initiative, two more initiatives are implemented this year... the Russian troops in Ukraine will face more significant problems on the front line.”

Kyiv has relied heavily on Western military assistance throughout the full-scale war launched by Russia in February 2022.

But a major new package of US military aid has been held up for months in Congress, facing Republican resistance.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said earlier in 2024 that “shell hunger” was a big problem for Ukrainian forces as international partners raced to amp up production as Russia advanced in the east. REUTERS