{"id":14103,"date":"2026-07-07T14:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/14103\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T14:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T14:41:14","slug":"czech-republics-babis-u-turns-on-not-a-single-crown-for-ukraine-weapons-on-eve-of-nato-ankara-summit-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/14103\/","title":{"rendered":"Czech Republic\u2019s Babi\u0161 U-turns on \u2018not a single crown\u2019 for Ukraine weapons on eve of Nato Ankara summit \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

First published in Den\u00edk N<\/a><\/p>\n

Czech prime minister Andrej Babi\u0161 and his Prague coalition partners had until now opposed allowing the Czech Republic to help finance weapons for war-torn Ukraine. <\/p>\n

However, ahead of the Nato summit in Ankara<\/a>, the coalition has reversed its position, opting instead to contribute funds to a US-backed initiative that purchases weapons for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not give Ukraine a single crown from the budget for weapons,\u201d the leaders of the new government, led by Babi\u0161 (ANO party), declared in October 2025, after taking office.<\/p>\n

But on the eve of the Nato summit in Ankara, a U-turn is taking place, which foreign affairs minister Petr Macinka confirmed shortly before departing for Ankara.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now dealing with the fact that some projects which are mandatory in our budget towards Ukraine, we intend to redirect precisely into this PURL programme, yes,\u201d Macinka responded to a question from Den\u00edk N.<\/p>\n

The PURL programme<\/a> functions exclusively as a tool through which individual allied Nato countries contribute to the purchase of weapons for embattled Ukraine. The programme provides money for the purchase of American weapons.<\/p>\n

The Czech Republic did not participate in it and had not even been registered in it so far. But that is supposed to change. <\/p>\n

According to information obtained by Den\u00edk N, Macinka was to officially present the change of position on Tuesday (7 July) during a dinner of foreign ministers of Nato countries and Ukraine. <\/p>\n

But it is not yet clear what amounts and which specific \u201cmandatory projects\u201d will be involved. The foreign ministry had not responded to questions by the time this article was published.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will still be clarifying it, but it is the case that some money will be directed into the PURL programme, we will be sending a contribution to it,\u201d one high-ranking source from the state administration told Den\u00edk N. Another source from the diplomatic service confirmed this information.<\/p>\n

The Czech Republic had previously been called upon to start sending money to the programme by the American ambassador<\/a> in Prague, Nicholas Merrick.<\/p>\n

Prime minister Babi\u0161, however, rejected this and changed his mind only now, shortly before the Nato summit, where the joint communique is expected to commit allies to increasing sanctions against Russia and additional support for Ukraine\u2019s air defences. <\/p>\n

According to Den\u00edk N\u2019s findings, the US told the Czech Republic two weeks ago not to explain at the summit why it was failing to meet its commitments, but instead to offer a remedy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey stressed to us that we should avoid political commentary and stop asking for tolerance from the US,\u201d said a high-ranking source from the state administration familiar with the content of the meeting. \u201cThey stressed that we should start meeting our commitments and say how we would achieve that,\u201d the source added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First published in Den\u00edk N Czech prime minister Andrej Babi\u0161 and his Prague coalition partners had until now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,22,6178,6175,6172,6170,6173,6176,20,6171,6174,6177,21],"class_list":["post-14103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-identifier24","tag-identifier4385","tag-identifier4391","tag-identifier4528","tag-nameczech-republic","tag-namedefence","tag-namenato","tag-nameukraine","tag-termcodeczech-republic","tag-termcodedefence","tag-termcodenato","tag-termcodeukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}