Ever wonder just who Czechia has been hitting up to buy artillery ammunition from for Ukraine? This report from RBC Ukraine and the WSJ has some potentially surprising answers:
Czechia is using its Cold War contacts to obtain much-needed ammunition for Ukraine. With US arms aid blocked, ammunition production in the West slowly growing, and Kyiv's stockpiles dwindling, Prague is buying from countries that are allies of Moscow, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Czechia has received about 800,000 artillery shells from various suppliers around the world and has identified another 700,000 units that can be ordered if additional funding is available. So far, the first tranche of 300,000 shells has been secured, with Germany making the largest contribution.
The country's former affiliation with the former Soviet bloc proved to be an unexpected help. Czechia inherited a large arms industry with customers all over the world and good relations with many countries in the Global South that have large stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons and the capacity to produce even more.
Although Prague is silent on where the ammunition comes from, the newspaper claims that Russia's allies are among the suppliers. The trade agreements stipulate that deliveries will be made through Czechia or third countries to hide any direct connection between the countries of origin and Ukraine and to avoid exposing the supplier to Moscow's wrath.
Tomas Pojar, national security adviser to Prime Minister Petr Fiala says confidentiality is the key point, they talk and will talk to everyone, regardless of their loyalty or political position - with some exceptions, such as North Korea.
For his part, Jan Jiresh, Czech Deputy Defense Minister, says the Czech initiative revealed a contradiction between the publicly friendly attitude of some governments toward Russia and their willingness to make deals with Ukraine's allies in private...
I guess Russia can’t really buy loyalty after all — what a shame when even some of your closest ‘friends’ are perfectly happy to help arm the country you’re currently at war with, even if it’s on the down-low! Cuba would be one of my candidates, since they seem almost desperate these days for some rapprochement with the US. From The Hill today:
Cuban officials are pushing every button at their disposal to get the Biden administration’s attention, offering talks on previously off-the-table issues such as human rights amid internal protests over the country’s worst economic crisis since the end of the Cold War.
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The communist government, once hopeful President Biden would reverse some of former President Trump’s most stringent restrictions on Cuba — namely the state sponsor of terror designation — is now playing formerly withheld cards, but Cuban officials say the U.S. is not picking up the phone.
“There’s not a lack of interest; what’s lacking is political will. And further, even on the issues that the U.S. government says are their priorities toward Cuba, I can responsibly tell you that there have been public and private offerings from Cuba: ‘Let’s sit down and discuss topics that they say are their priorities, like the issue of human rights,’” Johana Tablada, the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s top official in the General Division for the United States, told The Hill in a recent interview.
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Cuba’s inclusion in the list of state sponsors of terrorism was highlighted as the most egregious element of U.S. sanctions.
Cuba was added to the list by Trump a week before Biden took office, leaving the Democrat with a hot potato: He could either keep Cuba on the list, dealing a blow to the island’s economy and spurring migration, or he could remove it, exposing himself to accusations of sympathizing with the communist regime.
Biden chose the former, leaving Cuba — a country that has close collaboration with the U.S. on an array of issues, including law enforcement — in the same category as Iran, North Korea and Syria.
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The lingering designation has frustrated Cuban officials, who routinely point to U.S. relations with Vietnam as a model to follow and an example of how the United States can engage diplomatically and commercially with a communist country.