Germany will support the Czech initiative to procure hundreds of thousands of artillery shells for Ukraine with a three-digit million sum, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin on Wednesday.
Hebestreit said that the German government has been in very intensive talks with Prague about this for some time, adding that "a three-digit million sum will be raised" to support the scheme, without giving an exact sum.
While the plan, which aims to procure 800,000 artillery shells from third countries outside the European Union, is not yet finalized, it certainly will be in the very near future, according to the spokesman.
The Ukrainian army, which has been fending off a full-scale Russian invasion for more than two years, has increasingly found itself on the defensive in recent weeks due to a lack of ammunition.
Russia, on the other hand, has ramped up its own defence production and also receives ammunition from North Korea and Iran. French President Emmanuel Macron also said Paris would join the initiative during a visit to Prague on Tuesday.
Czech President and former NATO secretary general Petr Pavel said at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February that about half a million 155 mm calibre rounds and 300,000 122 mm caliber rounds had been "identified" abroad.
Some media reports have hinted that the ammunition could come from countries such as South Korea, South Africa and Turkey.
The Czech initiative is seen as a response to a stalled EU plan to deliver 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition to Ukraine.
Apart from France and Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Denmark and Lithuania have also promised to help fund the scheme.