Poland promises Ukraine 100 million for ammunition, but has not yet transferred money according to previous promises
Poland will allocate €100 million for the purchase of ammunition for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski made this promise in Kyiv at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andriy Sybiha, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported.
These statements seem rather odd given recent publications in the Polish press. For example, Wyborcza reports that Poland has still not provided funds for the Czech initiative to purchase ammunition for Ukraine, despite a promise.
According to the publication, Poland has become the only country that has publicly joined the procurement initiative, but has not yet sent a single contribution.
"By August of this year, several dozen countries had joined the Czech initiative to arm Ukraine, contributing varying amounts. Germany donated the most and the earliest. The only countries that have so far only publicly declared their donations and have not transferred a single zloty are the Poles," reads the publication, titled "The Truth About the Czech Initiative: Poland Hasn't Donated."
Sikorski justifies this year's Warsaw tranche by saying that the previous chairman of the Polish Government Agency for Strategic Reserves, which deals with such matters, is detained in London under an international arrest warrant.
By August of this year, more than 17 countries had joined the Czech initiative to supply Ukraine with scarce 155mm artillery shells by purchasing them outside of Europe. Germany has become the largest donor to the pro-Ukrainian initiative. Barring anything completely unexpected, the Czech Republic will supply Ukraine with approximately 100 artillery shells in September as part of the ammunition production initiative, the publication predicts.
It is noted that this will bring Czech politicians significantly closer to fulfilling their promise to provide Ukraine by the end of the year at least half a million rounds of artillery ammunition of various calibers, mainly 155 mm, purchased by Kyiv's Western allies from sources outside the European Union.
"The initiative was developed and planned at a time when it was unclear whether European and American manufacturers would be able to increase ammunition production and by how much, and Ukraine had no guaranteed supplies from the United States. Experts from the Czech Ministry of Defense, together with representatives of about five trusted Czech companies, collected information about where ammunition stockpiles or spare production capacities could be located in the world. They created the famous, but top secret, table from which potential donors chose which supplies they wanted to pay for," Wyborcza notes.