The Czech ammunition initiative for Ukraine emerged in early 2024 as a response to the monthslong suspension of US military aid and Brussels' failure to keep up with the promised pace of shell deliveries, affecting Kyiv's ability to fend off Russia's full-scale invasion.
As many as 16 European countries, led by the Czech Republic, decided to act. They united in an ad hoc coalition to buy artillery rounds for Ukraine. Their aim was considerable: to supply as many as 800,000 large-caliber shells to boost the Ukrainian war effort.
A year into this pledge, Czech officials behind the initiative claim to have supplied twice this amount. Government sources in Ukraine, however, say the numbers are more modest, although they refuse to provide a precise figure, citing security concerns.
Despite claims that the initiative has been a success, it faces fierce criticism from the Czech opposition and Ukrainian NGOs over alleged profiteering, political favoritism, poor quality, and supply delays.
An international consortium of journalists from the Czech Republic (Investigace.cz), the Netherlands (The Investigative Desk and Follow The Money), and Ukraine (Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service RFE/RL) have checked these claims and found that, while specific allegations lack evidence, some criticism is justified.
Shells often arrived in Ukraine later than scheduled, which could have impacted defense planning, the investigation established.
All the participating entities tasked with buying ammunition for Ukraine in the initiative are Czech, and some of them have close ties to government officials, raising concerns about conflicts of interest.
The commissions these companies charge for intermediary work are at least four times higher than those of Ukrainian state arms brokers, who argue they could have bought more ammunition with the donor funds themselves.
The Czech initiative managed more than 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in European taxpayer money as of late 2024. How effectively these funds are utilized is increasingly important for Ukraine as US aid dwindles and every cent of European support becomes vital.
As for the allegations that the Czech initiative supplied poor-quality ammunition -- which reportedly triggered premature explosions -- the investigation found no evidence. Instead, there were signs that these claims were part of a disinformation effort, possibly orchestrated by Russia.
Smear Campaign?
In the fall of 2024, Czech media began reporting on leaked correspondences addressed to the leaders of the ammunition initiative.
All written in broken English, these letters allege that some fuses for 155mm shells Ukraine received as part of the Czech initiative were defective and had led to premature explosions that damaged artillery and injured military personnel.
One letter, for example, was dated August 2024 and signed by a Ukrainian NGO calling itself the All-Ukrainian Organization of War-Disabled People, Armed Forces, and Combatants.
This entity was registered in Kyiv in 1994, although there is little information available in the public domain about its activities.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, the NGO is known to have held only two public events: an exhibition of war-themed cartoons and a roundtable discussion about investments into drone development.
It wrote a letter to Czech President Petr Pavel, calling on him to investigate the supply of allegedly defective shells, describing the problem as "of utmost importance for the security and sovereignty of Ukraine."
The document alleges the ammunition in question came from one of the Czech initiative's participants, Excalibur Army, part of the Czechoslovak Group (CSG). The letter's authors accuse Excalibur Army of sabotage and of having ties to Russia and China.
"We are concerned that the Czech initiative munitions may be a Trojan horse for agents of the Russian Federation," the letter says, before adding that the "ongoing failures of munitions, particularly the M***5 fuses, raise the possibility of sabotage, which is particularly alarming given the ongoing conflict." (Schemes is withholding the full name of the fuses for security reasons.)
CSG, whose subsidiary has been blamed by the Ukrainian "veteran organization" for the problems with munitions, called this "a discredit attempt."
However, citing feedback from Ukrainian authorities, the arms company acknowledged to Schemes and its partners that there had been "minor issues" with shells.
Of 13 documented cases involving abnormal fuse operation (no time frame was provided), the company said three may have come from CSG. The remaining 10, it noted, involved "a different combination of projectile or powder charge" than what CSG or its alliance partner supplied as part of the Czech initiative.
The NGO's letter lists three points of contact as "independent experts" to be consulted: reserve colonels Oleksandr Hromyko, Oleksandr Mamatov, and Oleksandr Poyda.
Schemes tried to contact them for comment.
One of them, Poyda, couldn't be reached since he died a few months after the letter was written to the Czech president. Another expert, Hromyko, said he was not familiar with the document's content.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Hromyko told Schemes over the phone. He eventually recalled it after Schemes cited excerpts from the document.
He said everything laid out in the letter came from his colleague Oleksandr Mamatov, head of the NGO, who "visited the areas (of hostilities) and made such a statement to the members of the organization, so we believed him and assumed it was true."
When Schemes approached Mamatov for comment, he confirmed his suspicions that the Czech initiative had been subjected to Russian sabotage. However, he refused to elaborate on the source of the information or provide any details.
"If fuses are made by the Russians, they won't detonate. You get it, right? It was all of poor quality and supplied from Europe, and I think the components that didn't initiate the explosion came from agents in Russia. That's what I believe," he said.
Questioned about specifics, Mamatov asked Schemes to call him in an hour and then never answered the phone.
Schemes and its partner organizations reached out to Pavel through the Office of the Czech President, which denied receiving the document. Other stakeholders, including the Czech Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, and the Defense Ministry, told the journalists that they had not received this letter, either.
The journalists obtained copies of two similar letters from unknown senders about the shells given to Ukraine as part of the Czech initiative. These had been addressed to Ales Vytecka, who is director of the Intergovernmental Defense Cooperation Agency (AMOS), which operates under the Czech Defense Ministry and coordinates ammunition supplies within the Czech initiative.
Like the Ukrainian NGO's appeal to Pavel, the two letters to Vytecka, which were leaked to the journalists, are dated August 2024 and address the same issue: the alleged early detonation of 155mm rounds due to fuse defects.
The copies of the letters the journalists obtained are not signed but are written as if "on behalf of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people" and mention Ukraine's defense attache office, which was reportedly informed about the problems concerning the donated shells by the Logistics Command of the Armed Forces. The latter didn't respond to Schemes' request for comment.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry and military intelligence, which could have conveyed the message through diplomatic channels, both denied involvement.
In the interview with Schemes' partner Investigace.cz, Vytecka denied receiving any official complaints from Ukrainian authorities about the alleged poor quality of the ammunition.
This was confirmed by Tomas Kopecny, the Czech envoy for Ukraine reconstruction who is also involved in the ammunition effort. He said these letters were not "an official feedback report."
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry refused to comment on the quality of ammunition received under the Czech initiative, citing a ban on revealing information about foreign aid under martial law.
However, a high-ranking source at the ministry told Schemes off the record that the Czech initiative provided no defective ammunition that would prematurely explode.
According to this source, there were instances when shells came with nonmatching supplementary components or lacked these components altogether. However, they added that the Czech intermediaries sorted this out "within 24 hours."
Vytecka told Investigace.cz that participants in the Czech initiative bear full responsibility for the quality of the products they supply to Ukraine. He added his state agency was open to addressing any relevant complaints from Ukrainian authorities, but that none had been lodged.
The donors of the Czech initiative also scrutinize the quality of the ammunition they fund, Kopecny said.
"Representatives of those donor countries that have given some relevant amounts regularly go directly to the factories where the shells are produced or stored," he said. "They come with technical experts to assess the contents, and so on. And then, of course, they are present during the handover. They check whether their taxpayers' funds are being spent according to the contract."
Kopecny added that letters he had seen with allegations about the Czech initiative "looked completely untrustworthy" and "like a disinfo campaign."
Schemes showed copies of the letters to Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, which operates under Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council.
He said he hadn't seen these particular letters before but his unit had "already documented previous Russian attempts to launch negative messages about the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine, but this had not turned into a full-fledged media campaign."
"The messages concerned the quality of the ammunition, but there was no evidence to support" the claims they made, he added.
Schemes found several negative mentions of the alleged poor quality of ammunition purchased for Ukraine as part of the Czech initiative.
One of the most recent is a February 2025 statement by Czech opposition politician Andrej Babis, who called the shells "old, moldy, [and] overpriced," adding their acquisition was "untransparent" but provided no evidence for these allegations.
Babis is the leader of the ANO party -- whose name means "Yes" in Czech and is an acronym for the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens. He has been described in the media as a populist billionaire and Russia's backer in the Czech Republic.
Babis says he is "defending the interests of the Czech Republic," and his party is leading the polls ahead of parliamentary elections this autumn. ANO has already said that if it enters the government, it will cancel the munitions initiative for Ukraine.
No Smoke Without Fire
Some of the criticism directed at the Czech initiative is more well-placed than allegations about the quality of its supplies, particularly concerns about conflicts of interest, profiteering, and delivery delays.
When Pavel pledged at the Munich Security Conference in February 2024 that Europe would buy ammunition for Ukraine, it was clear Czech officials would lead the effort. By then, they had already located the shells and moved to raise funds from European countries.
However, what wasn't clear at the time was that the effort would be so heavily centered around Prague: All five companies granted exclusive rights to broker ammunition contracts -- for a commission -- are Czech. The Czech government held no public tenders, and did not disclose the criteria for the selection.
AMOS head Vytecka told Investigace.cz that the Czech participants were "chosen together with Ukrainian partners" and "formally agreed in writing with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry." The latter, however, told Schemes that it "didn't take part in the selection process of the suppliers" and isn't authorized to veto decisions by the Czech authorities.
Two of the companies -- the Czechoslovak Group (CSG) and the STV Group -- are producers of large-caliber ammunition, while the other three -- the Colt CZ Group, Omnipol, and DSS -- act as arms brokers. All five, however, are authorized to source ammunition and sign procurement contracts on Ukraine's behalf.
Czech officials have declined to explain why this list of intermediaries excludes foreign firms or well-known international arms producers and brokers such as the Norwegian-Finnish NAMMO or Germany's Rheinmetall. According to Kopecny, the participating Czech companies were chosen for either their production capacities or their existing networks for sourcing ammunition abroad.
Vytecka said the aim was to involve only a small number of participants in the initiative "Five companies are easier to watch more closely than 20," he said, citing quality control and the "security risk of leaks to the Russians."
However, Schemes and its partners found that the largest participant in the initiative, CSG, has a subsidiary in Russia called Tatra Vostok, which sells trucks and spare parts.
What's the Role Of Tatra Vostok?
In 2022, CSG pledged to exit the Russian market following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, as of 2024, the company still owned Tatra Vostok. Between 2023 and 2024, it also received import certificates in Russia.
In response to journalists' inquiries, CSG stated it was seeking ways to divest from Tatra Vostok and claimed the certificates were "not related to plans to operate in the Russian market." At the time of publication, the investigating journalists had found no evidence contradicting that claim.
CSG has business in Russia dating back to 2017. The company's owner at the time, via affiliated entities, was the largest donor to Milos Zeman, a Russia-friendly former Czech president who was in office from 2013 to 2023. This connection allegedly helped the company expand into Russia and open a civil aviation maintenance and repair center in Ulyanovsk.
Journalists also uncovered indirect links to Russia involving another participant in the Czech initiative, the Colt CZ Group.
In January, iInvestigace.cz and its partners reported that the Colt CZ Group's weapons and ammunition were still reaching Russia through intermediaries in Turkey and Kazakhstan, effectively circumventing sanctions and raising questions about the company's due diligence.
The journalists also noticed that two of the five intermediary firms handpicked by the government for the Czech initiative hold ties with Czech officials, fueling suspicions of favoritism and protectionism.
In July 2024, the Czech media outlet Denik N revealed that Tomas Pojar, a national-security adviser to the Czech government and one of the coordinators of the initiative, was an adviser to CSG. According to Denik N, Pojar denied a conflict of interest.
Responding to questions from Schemes and its partners, CSG told Investigace.cz it doesn't "disclose whether anyone is or has been an external consultant" but uses "experienced professionals and individuals with a history of public service." However, it said current public officials cannot be consultants of the company, and that this "eliminates potential conflicts of interest."
Shortly after the launch of the Czech initiative, CSG's CEO, Michal Strnad, and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala were spotted together during the latter's visit to the United States in April 2024. The two were photographed sharing a table during a state dinner. The Czech government later said Strnad was not part of Fiala's delegation and didn't participate in official meetings at the White House.
CSG isn't the only participant in the ammunition initiative with ties to Czech political figures. One of the Colt CZ Group's compliance and ethics committee members is Petr Kolar, an adviser to President Pavel. Czech journalists have suggested Kolar's role may explain why Pavel visited Colt's US facility during his trip to the United States in November 2023.
"I don't see my position as an adviser to the president and my links to the Colt CZ Group as a conflict of interest. I am sure that, if something were conflicting, the Czech secret services would inform the president and the government immediately," Kolar said in a comment to The Investigative Desk, another Schemes' partner in this project.
"I have nothing to do with this initiative, except that I like it," he added.
While Kolar downplays any concerns, others see the situation differently.
"It is common for any major businessman to maintain good relations with politicians across the political spectrum," said Marek Chromy, chief analyst at Transparency International's Czech office. "However, with CSG and Colt, there is a risk that certain people's influence goes beyond these arms companies and impacts Czech politics. They are thus in an exemplary conflict of interest."
"The lack of information, together with the lack of transparency of some processes within [the Czech Republic], such as the Czech munitions initiative, then raises many questions about their formal and informal influence," he added.
Along with accusations of preferential treatment from the Czech authorities, participants in the initiative have been publicly accused of attempting to generate excessive profits from the supply of ammunition to Ukraine.
In August 2024, Lukas Wagenknecht -- an economist, auditor, and Czech senator at the time --released a report accusing the Czech initiative of failing to manage donor funds "carefully and effectively."
Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochova denied the allegations, calling them "false, unacceptable, lies, and disinformation," and went so far as to label Wagenknecht's actions a security threat to Ukraine's ammunition supply.
The Czech Senate's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Security convened an urgent meeting in September 2024 to address the controversy and invited Wagenknecht to participate. He declined the invitation.
Wagenknecht argued that more ammunition could have been bought for Ukraine if Czech intermediaries hadn't charged such high commissions. The politician based his conclusion on leaked commercial offers.
Schemes and its partners also obtained these documents.
The documents show that in February 2024, Excalibur Army -- a subsidiary of CSG -- offered 155mm M107 artillery shells to the Czech government for 3,200 euros ($3,600) per unit. Around the same time, a Turkish manufacturer offered to sell seemingly similar M107 shells to Excalibur Army for 2,500 euros each.
Based on this, Wagenknecht estimated the intermediary markup could have reached "22 percent," which he argued was "excessively high."
CSG publicly denied profiteering, calling the accusations "attacks based on half-truths and nonsense."
Well-informed government sources in the Czech Republic and Ukraine said the agreed commission for all five companies participating in the initiative doesn't exceed 13 percent, while Kopecny calculates the margin to be 5-10 percent.
This contrasts with the rate of Ukrainian arms brokers, who only charge up to 3 percentfor intermediary services. For instance, Ukraine's state Defense Procurement Agency (DPA) -- established in 2022 to reduce corruption and modeled after NATO's Support and Procurement Agency -- charges just 0.4 percent.
Maryna Bezrukova led the agency for a year before being replaced amid a scandal involving a controversial leadership shake-up in January. She told Schemes that brokers working through the Czech initiative often purchase shells at prices 10–20 percent higher than what the DPA is able to negotiate directly.
"Companies participating in the Czech initiative do not make as much effort to get a lower price as the DPA does. Saving money is not their priority; the main thing is to buy the necessary range of products," she told Schemes in December 2024, a month before being dismissed.
Instead, she asks why the European donor funds are not given directly to Ukraine "for the DPA to buy what the military needs at a cheaper price."
But not everyone who has been involved in Ukraine's defense procurement system shares her view. Oleksiy Petrov, the former head of another state arms broker, SpetsTechnoExport, argues that price alone shouldn't be the central concern.
"The level of bureaucracy and overregulation effective since 2023 in the [Ukrainian] Defense Ministry…does not exist in the Czech initiative," he told Schemes in February 2024, shortly before he himself was dismissed from his post.
"The price is not the most essential question, but the delivery time and the efficiency of delivery. Let the money be there [in the Czech Republic], and they will supply us with the goods we need, they will come [on time]."
However, sources in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to comment on this matter, told Schemes that supplies sent as part of the Czech initiative often don't arrive on time.
"It is difficult to keep to the schedule," one Ukrainian arms industry source told Schemes, adding that this is due to how "this market works."
Imperfect, But It Works
Czech and Ukrainian authorities agree that, despite its flaws, the Czech initiative has helped to improve Ukraine's defense capabilities.
In April, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the Czech initiative has helped "change the ratio of the number of shells Ukraine and Russia exchange from 1:10 to 1:2." He didn't specify a time frame for this change, but in October 2024 then-Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ivan Havrylyuk said the ratio was 1:8 at the start of that year but that it had improved to 1:2 by the summer.
The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces told Schemes that, in January 2025 alone, the Russian Army fired about 790,000 artillery rounds at Ukraine (an average of about 25,500 rounds per day).
A close look at the work of the Czech initiative shows its authors have learned from the mistakes of the previous supply efforts for Ukraine.
Unlike the earlier EU initiative of 1 million rounds, which only took ammunition from inside the European Union and thus faced major sourcing problems, the Czech initiative went overseas. This helped to widen the range of suppliers and resulted in "ammunition being obtained thanks to contacts in countries that often, for geopolitical reasons, do not want to be associated with supplies to Ukraine," said Czech Defense Minister Cernochova.
Open data and insider sources indicate that the Czech initiative sources ammunition globally from Europe and Southeast Asia to Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Balkans. Schemes has chosen not to disclose specific procurement locations for security reasons.
'Tougher Without Them'
The Czech arms brokers manage all required documentation, streamlining what is typically a bureaucratic process. Czech Senator Pavel Fischer told journalists that issuing licenses under the initiative is now 10 times faster than before, taking "days instead of months."
Bezrukova, the former head of Ukraine's Defense Procurement Agency, confirmed this.
"The participants of the Czech initiative issue all the documents very fast and supply what is difficult to deliver logistically," she told Schemes. "It would have been much tougher without them."
For geopolitical reasons, some of the countries supplying ammunition to Ukraine through the Czech initiative would refuse to sell it either directly to Ukraine or even via intermediaries. Yet Czech arms brokers have managed to secure deals in these cases as well. How? They use a workaround: purchasing the ammunition as if for their own use, then transferring it to Ukraine.
"The Czech initiative is the seller of documents," a source involved in arms procurement told Schemes. "They issue them, go through export control in all the countries on the way, and negotiate where necessary."
This approach carries significantly higher legal and logistical risks, according to the source, and this is reflected in the higher prices.
"They are entitled to their commission because they take responsibility," the source said, adding that not all of the profit margin ends up in the intermediary's pocket and that they sustain supplementary expenses "critical…for the shells to arrive."
Beyond securing ammunition from hard-to-access markets, another advantage of the Czech initiative is its ability to navigate legal hurdles faced by donor countries.
For instance, some nations are unable to quickly purchase arms for Ukraine due to domestic legal constraints. Denmark, for example, is required by law to conduct a public tender before contracting an arms producer.
The workaround offered by Czech officials is an intergovernmental agreement wherein the Czech Republic purchases the donor's chosen ammunition on its behalf, bypassing the need for a lengthy tender process. That being said, donor countries also have the option to contract and pay producers directly.
The Czech initiative serves as the central coordinator for all such efforts.
Participating companies source ammunition from around the world and submit their offers to AMOS, the Czech Republic's Intergovernmental Defense Cooperation Agency. AMOS compiles the information into a spreadsheet that includes the type of ammunition, quantity, price, and delivery time frame -- though the supplier's identity is not disclosed. Donor countries review the anonymized offers and select the ones they wish to pursue. They then inform AMOS, which either connects them with the supplier or executes the deal on their behalf, depending on their preference.
Czech authorities across various state agencies maintain that, while the workings of the initiative are not publicly disclosed, transparency has been a priority from the outset -- and that donor countries have full access to all relevant information.
"If we really want to help Ukraine, where soldiers and civilians are dying every day, we cannot present details of the purchases to Russia on a silver platter," Cernochova said on X.
In 2024, 16 countries contributed to the initiative. The largest donations came from Germany ($650 million), the Netherlands ($283 million), and Belgium ($227 million). As of July 2024, the Czech Republic itself had contributed more than $38 million.
Officials involved in the initiative are reluctant to disclose exact supply volumes due to security concerns but estimate deliveries amount to tens of thousands of shells per month.
A Ukrainian artilleryman with vast experience of firing both NATO-standard and Soviet-type shells told Schemes that it's virtually impossible for soldiers on the ground to trace ammunition back to its producer.
"You get a shell, and in most cases, there's no label on it -- nothing like 'Made in the USA,' and certainly no indication it was purchased through the Czech initiative," he said from a combat position. Citing martial law restrictions on public commentary regarding military operations, the officer requested anonymity and that his unit not be identified so he could speak freely.
According to him, different shells come from everywhere.
"The country is at war, so shells are being sourced the best way they can be and wherever they can be, so there is no point in cherry-picking. Everyone understands this," he said.
"We play with the cards we are dealt," he added. "You always have a choice not to accept what you are given. And if you have nothing, I have some news for you: You get killed."
Will The Initiative Continue?
In recent months, as US backing has faltered, support from the EU has become increasingly vital for Ukraine.
After US President Donald Trump temporarily halted military aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine in March -- a decision that was later reversed -- the EU began exploring new ways to strengthen Ukraine's position on the battlefield and in any future negotiations with Russia.
Initially, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas proposed supplying Ukraine with 1.5 million additional artillery shells by the end of 2025. That plan, however, was blocked by a Hungarian veto. A second proposal -- to allocate 40 billion euros ($45 billion) in aid -- also failed to gain sufficient support from EU member states.
Nonetheless, Kallas's push to increase support for Kyiv survived in a reduced form. In April, she announced a 5 billion euro ($5.7 billion) package -- enough, she said, to purchase 2 million large-caliber artillery rounds for Ukraine -- and claimed to have secured backing for "two-thirds of the initiative."
As of April, several European countries -- including Norway, the Netherlands, and Poland -- as well as Canada pledged a combined 831 million euros ($941 million) in new contributions to the initiative this year.
"We have managed to secure funding, which means that this initiative now has enough resources to supply Ukraine with ammunition every month until September," Czech Foreign Minister Lipavsky said in April.
On May 4, during a meeting with Czech President Pavel in Prague, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine expects to receive a total of 1.8 million shells under the Czech initiative by the end of 2025.
All these ammunition initiatives are indeed helping Ukraine withstand Russian assaults, but they aren't enough to stop them.
Despite renewed diplomatic efforts to reach a cease-fire -- efforts Ukraine has agreed to -- Russia has escalated its attacks. In April alone, dozens of Ukrainian civilians were killed and hundreds more injured in Russian strikes on the regions of Dnipro, Kryviy Rih, Sumy, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Kyiv.
