Slovenia joined the Czech initiative to purchase shells from Ukraine

Slovenia will support the Czech Republicʼs initiative to purchase artillery ammunition for Ukraine outside the European Union.

This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Jan Lipavsky, during a visit to Ljubljana, Radio Prague International reports.

The minister did not name a specific amount, but Slovenian media reports that the government can allocate one million euros.

At the same time, Austria refused to join the initiative due to its military neutrality, said the head of diplomacy there, Alexander Shallenberg.

A meeting of foreign ministers of the Central 5 informal group was held in Ljubljana the day before, in which the Austrian, Czech, Hungarian, Slovenian and Slovak parties took part. They discussed, in particular, Ukraine. Slovenia plans to continue helping Kyiv in reconstruction, demining, rehabilitation and psychosocial assistance to children and families.

• The Czech Republic, together with its partners, was able to collect part of the funds for the purchase of the first batch of artillery shells for Ukraine. We are talking about 300,000 ammunition out of the 800,000 promised. The country continues to look for partners to further support Ukraine in its fight against the Russian aggressor. Germany, France, Lithuania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal and Iceland have already agreed to participate in the initiative.
• The Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jan Lipavsky, said the other day that Ukraine can receive 1.5 million projectiles under the Czech initiative, instead of 800,000, as originally planned.