At the same time, the Czech Republic plans to deliver 500,000 artillery shells.
The European Union supplied Ukraine with more than 980,000 155-millimeter artillery shells. By the end of this year, it plans to exceed the one million mark, EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday. TASR informs about it based on a Reuters report.
The EU originally planned to deliver one million artillery shells by March 2024, but officials later said production capacity was insufficient to meet the plan. “I know we committed to this level by spring, but we failed. But we can do it by the end of the year,” Borrell told the Ukrainian media Evropejejska pravda.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that 500,000 artillery shells will be delivered to Kyiv by the end of the year as part of an independent initiative led by Prague. Ukraine is also increasing domestic defense production in an effort to reduce its dependence on allied military aid and ensure timely deliveries.
A leading Kyiv arms official reported that Ukraine increased the production of mortar shells from zero to millions of pieces per year even before the Russian invasion, writes Reuters.
