Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski has stated that Warsaw joined the Czech initiative to purchase hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds for Ukraine, but he refused to disclose the sum allocated by his government for that particular purpose.

"Yes, we are in [the Czech initiative for the purchase of shells for Ukraine – ed.]," Sikorski said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

At the same time, during a meeting with American journalists organised by the Christian Science Monitor in Washington, the minister refused to disclose the amount his government allocated for the artillery rounds.

Earlier, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that based on the signals received by his government, Ukrainian military forces will soon get the ammunition supplies as part of the Czech initiative.

On 12 March, it was reported that in addition to the commitment to purchase 300,000 artillery shells for Ukraine under a Czech-led initiative, the Czech government received an early approval from fellow EU countries to purchase an additional 200,000 shells; they can be bought by these countries that have joined the initiative.

Czech President Petr Pavel announced at the Munich Security Conference that Czechia had found up to 800,000 NATO standard-calibre shells that could be sent to Ukraine within a few weeks if proper funding could be found.

Last week, the Czech prime minister announced that enough money had been raised to purchase the first batch of 300,000 artillery shells.