ANO leader Andrej Babiš said on October 8 that his party would axe state military support for Ukraine it succeeds in forming the next cabinet.

After ANO won the Czech general election last weekend, Babis swiftly entered talks with the far right and anti-EU SPD and anti-green and staunchly Eurosceptic Motorists for Themselves after the weekend vote. Though Babiš has not yet been tasked with forming the next cabinet, the three parties wield a comfortable parliamentary majority of 108 in the Chamber of Deputies of 200.

Commenting on future plans, Babis told journalists: “We won’t give Ukraine a single crown [monetary unit of the local currency koruna/CZK] for weapons” from the budget, Czech Press Agency (CTK) reported on October 8.

Babiš made the comments at a press conference where he again criticised the state budget drafted for next year by the outgoing centre-right cabinet under Petr Fiala, whose flagship foreign affairs policy was the Czech-led initiative of collecting ammunition for Ukraine within and outside of the EU.

Babiš reiterated that the ammunition initiative should be moved to the Nato level, hinting Nato countries would ensure greater transparency, and also stressed that “we say: Czech weapon companies, do you want to export weapons to Ukraine? We don’t have any issue” with that.

“We don’t have money for the Czech Republic. I think we have helped Ukraine directly, and now we will help through the EU,” Babiš also stated.   

Babiš’s comments come shortly after the country’s liberal President Petr Pavel spoke out forcefully in defence of the ammunition initiative earlier this week.

“If we were to reduce, let alone end this support, we would harm ourselves in the first place,” Pavel told the media, as the country’s security analysts argued that the activity has raised the international prestige of the country.

Pavel Havlíček of the Prague-based Association for International Affairs (AMO) told CTK that ending the initiative “would have a significant impact on the reputation of the Czech Republic among the allies in the West, as well as on its perception in Ukraine.”

Pavel added that “the ending of this support would also have a negative influence on Ukraine, where many more people would lose their lives.”

CTK noted that the initiative secured 1.5mn artillery grenades for Ukraine last year alone, while this year it has been 1.1mn, and 3.5mn pieces of large calibre ammunition combined.