United to win: Czechia to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s ammunition purchase

The Czech Republic will direct part of the interest received from Russian assets frozen in the European Union to purchase more large-caliber ammunition for Ukraine.

The press service of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic reports this.

In June, EU governments reached a consensus on allocating 1.4 billion euros from frozen Russian assets to purchase weapons and provide other forms of assistance for Ukraine.

The Czech Ministry of Defense announced that a portion of these funds will go towards a program to procure artillery ammunition for Ukraine. Western partners are carrying out and funding the program.

"The European Union recently reached out to us with a proposition to utilize the funds generated from frozen Russian assets to buy ammunition for Ukraine, owing to the success of this initiative," Minister of Defense Jana Černochová said.

The supply of ammunition at the expense of Russian assets will take place in the coming months.

The procedure will be similar to the ammunition initiative. According to the requirements of the money donor – in this case, the European Union – the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic will act as an intermediary in the purchase of ammunition.

"Thanks to the use of revenues from frozen Russian assets allocated by the European Union, we will be able to supply Ukraine with several hundred thousand units of large-caliber ammunition," Černochováadded.

Western countries have frozen about $300 billion worth of sovereign Russian assets since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

EU countries take the interest earned on assets, including bonds and other securities bought by Russia's central bank, and put them into an EU fund to help Ukraine fight Russian aggression.

For reference:

At the G7 Summit in Italy on June 14, the leaders of the G7 nations agreed to provide Ukraine with approximately 50 billion US dollars by the end of the year. These funds will be managed and reimbursed using future profits from Russian assets frozen in the European Union and other jurisdictions.

The countries of the European Union will not currently participate directly in the $50 billion loan that the "Big Seven" group plans to provide to Ukraine.

Subsequently, on June 24, the European Union countries approved the first tranche of military aid for Ukraine in the amount of 1.4 billion euros, which will come from the revenues from frozen Russian assets.

It is worth adding that the United States is ready to lend Ukraine $50 billion, which will be repaid with profits from frozen Russian assets, provided that the European Union can extend sanctions against Moscow indefinitely.

According to open information, Euroclear currently has 192 billion euros of Russian Central Bank assets on its balance sheet. The EU is looking for legal mechanisms to deal further with these frozen resources and the interest accrued on them, which has reached €5 billion over the past two years.