The prospect loomed of the EU’s support for Ukraine being further hampered by some of its members after the billionaire Andrej Babis won the Czech Republic’s parliamentary elections. Babis’s campaign pledge of halting military aid to Ukraine aligns him with the prime ministers of Hungary and Slovakia, Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico. It marks a stark turnaround, because the outgoing Czech centre-right government of Petr Fiala has backed Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in 2022. The likely incoming prime minister has pledged to review a Czech-led international drive launched by the current Czech government, which has supplied 3.5m artillery shells to Ukraine since 2024.
After meeting the Czech president, Petr Pavel, Babis said labelling him as a potential troublemaker was “not fair”. The 71-year-old, Slovak-born Babis stressed he was pro-European and wanted “Europe to work well”. “Every year, we send €2.5bn in the budget to Brussels. And of course Brussels is helping Ukraine. So I think we are there,” Babis said. He also told Ukrainian media that Ukraine was “not prepared for the EU” and that “we have to end the war first”. Babis said he was ready to discuss this with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
