France to join Czechia in purchase of 800,000 shells for Ukraine’s defense

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the country's accession to the Czech initiative to purchase ammunition for Ukraine's armed forces and find financing for the project.

He stated this in Prague at a joint press conference with the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, referring to Ukrinform.

"We will appeal to third, non-European countries with a request to provide resources to meet Ukraine's short-term ammunition needs," the French leader said.

He recalled that the initiative consists "in finding ammunition where it exists and is compatible with the equipment that we have delivered."

"And we started the work, which before, let's say, was carried out separately. This is a more effective form of cooperation. That's why we support it and are ready to join," Macron said.

According to him, given Ukraine's needs, European countries should go beyond what is available.

"Our ministers will continue this work this afternoon," Macron added.

Concerning financing the purchase of ammunition, he noted that "it can be bilateral mobilization, it can be cooperation with third parties, bilateral funding, as well as European funding, from the European Peace Fund, which can be mobilized to support this initiative."

The president also stated that France's position regarding frozen Russian assets is unequivocal:

"We fully support the proposal to tax gains on assets, which amount to between €3 billion and €5 billion a year."

At the same time, France is against doing "what is prohibited by international law," Macron emphasized, speaking about the use of the frozen funds themselves.

At the same time, he added, France supports the proposal of "more innovative European financing" proposed by the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas.

For reference:

On February 17, at the Munich Security Conference, Czech President Petr Pavel said that his country had found 500,000 155 mm and 300,000 122 mm rounds that could be delivered within weeks if the money was available.

According to Pavel, the Czech Republic could transfer the projectiles in a matter of weeks if it gets funding from the USA, Germany, Sweden, and others.

It is known that the following joined the initiative of the Czech Republic:

• Canada, which will allocate 30 million Canadian dollars (about 23 million US dollars) for the purchase of ammunition for Ukraine outside NATO;
• The Netherlands allocates more than 100 million euros to this initiative;
• Belgium, which will give 200 million euros for the initiative of the Czech Republic;
• Lithuania will join the Czech initiative to purchase and transfer ammunition to Ukraine.
• In total, 15 countries support the procurement of ammunition for Ukraine outside of Europe.

It is worth adding that during the past months, the European Union has significantly increased the production of ammunition and will bring this capacity to 1 million ammunition per year in March of this year and to 2 million in 2025.