PRAGUE (Reuters) -Andrej Babis spoke to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday for the first time since he won last weekend’s Czech election and began talks on forming a coalition with right-wing parties that is pledging less support for Kyiv.
Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s outgoing centre-right government was quick to send tanks and military aid to Ukraine when Russia invaded in 2022, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have relocated to the Czech Republic to flee the conflict.
Babis’ populist ANO party pledged during the election campaign to end a Czech-led and Western-financed scheme sourcing ammunition for Ukraine. Babis has said his government will not allocate any national funds to aid Kyiv with arms.
Babis, who was prime minister in 2017-2021, is in coalition talks with right-wing party Motorists and the far-right, anti-EU and anti-NATO SPD party which opposes Ukraine aid, even for refugees.
“I am glad that he contacted me and described the current situation,” Babis said on X after the call with Zelenskiy. “We also agreed that if everything works out I will visit Ukraine next year.”
He gave no other details.
Zelenskiy, also on X, said Ukraine valued its strategic partnership with the Czech Republic and its support for Ukrainians. “We are working to make cooperation between our countries increasingly productive,” he said.
Czech President Petr Pavel, who appoints the prime minister and cabinet, has urged parties to maintain the ammunition programme, which was the outgoing government’s main aid contribution in the past two years.
The Czech programme sources supplies around the world through Czech arms traders and producers with Western donor countries, which have contributed the vast majority of financing.
Babis has called the programme overpriced and opaque, although he called it good “in principle” this week and has said it should be shifted under NATO.
The scheme helped deliver 1.5 million shells in 2024, with plans to exceed that figure in 2025.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet; Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv; Editing by Alison Williams)
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