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- A major supplier of ammunition for Ukraine described the struggle to get quality components.
- Czech defense CEO Michal Strnad told the FT that soaring prices and poor quality made the job difficult.
- Ukraine has been experiencing chronic ammunition shortages.
Central Europe's largest ammunition supplier said that quality and cost issues meant that half of the shells it's sourcing for Ukraine can't be sent directly to the country, according to the Financial Times.
"Every week the price is going up and there are big issues with the components," Michal Strnad, CEO of Czechoslovak Group, or CSG, told the paper.
"It's not an easy job," he added.
CSG, which has been acquiring ammo on behalf of the Czech government for Ukraine, has found that supplies being brought in from Asia or Africa are often missing components, or need work, the paper reported.
As such, the company is being forced to add missing components of its own, which has slowed delivery.
Strnad told the paper the initiative is still "on track," with deliveries expected in June.
Strnad's remarks came as five European leaders met in Prague on Tuesday to discuss plans to obtain 800,000 155 mm artillery shells from non-EU countries to send to Ukraine, Radio Free Europe reported.
The $1.7 billion project is funded by 15 EU states as well as NATO, per the outlet.
In a joint statement, the group of leaders said that half a million rounds of ammunition would be delivered by the end of the year.
In January, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the war in Ukraine had "become a battle for ammunition."
It's a message Strnad wishes Western leaders had taken on earlier.
He told the FT that he had warned policymakers two years ago that the ready availability of ammunition would define the war, but says his message went unheard.
"They didn't think that there could be some war where artillery would play the major role," he said. "Everybody thought about drones, artificial intelligence and new trends."
Rapidly developing technologies such as drones and electronic warfare have indeed played a crucial role in the conflict. But Ukraine's inability to advance along the front line this year — and its losses — have been attributed to a chronic shortage of soldiers and ammunition.
In April, the situation led one US veteran serving there to describe Russia as the "alpha predator" of the war, as Business Insider's Sinéad Baker reported.
Ukraine has been forced to limit itself to firing 2,000 shells per day for much of this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
And it's only been since mid-May that its forces have started to breathe more easily over their ability to expend shells, Zelenskyy said.
Since the outbreak of Russia's full-scale invasion, CSG has derived much of its profits from supplying Ukrainian forces.
In March, it announced that it was looking to start several joint ventures in Ukraine for the manufacture of heavy ammunition and equipment, Reuters reported.