Czechoslovak Group, the largest ammunition supplier in central Europe, warned that rising prices and poor quality meant that half the shells it had received could not be sent to Ukraine’s battlefields as quickly as planned.
A Czech-led initiative to buy artillery ammunition for Kyiv would start delivering rounds in June, Michal Strnad, owner and chair of CSG, told the Financial Times.
But he said that about 50 per cent of the parts acquired by his company on behalf of the Czech government in places such as Africa and Asia were not good enough to be sent without further work to Ukraine. For some shells, CSG is being forced to add missing components from its own production.