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Following talks with lawmakers in the US Congress on Tuesday, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said he was "moderately optimistic" about the chances of the US aid package for Ukraine winning approval in the House of Representatives.

Speaking to reporters at the end of his two-day visit to the US, Mr. Fiala said the congressmen appreciated the big role Czechia is playing in helping Ukraine, as well as the Czech shells-for-Ukraine initiative.

The Czech head of government concluded his US trip by paying tribute to the first Czechoslovak President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk at his statue in the diplomatic quarter.

Thanks to the Czech shells-for-Ukraine initiative, 500,000 pieces of artillery ammunition have already been purchased and there is no reason why it couldn’t be another million within the next twelve months, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said at the Hudson Institute on Tuesday.

In his speech, in which he also talked about the Czechoslovak experience with communism, the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops led by the Soviet army in 1968, and the importance of NATO, the Czech Prime Minister highlighted the Czech assistance to Ukraine to date.

He described Czechia as capable and reliable ally with a developed defence industry and good business contacts around the world. He also recalled Czechoslovak arms supplies to the young Israeli state in 1948.

The Czech head of government concluded his speech by saying that without the United States, we couldn’t deal with the crises which we face today and which we will face in the future.

Prague Zoo has selected eight Przewalski's horses, four of which will be transported to Kazakhstan in June in an effort to restore a population of the species in the wild, the zoo announced on Tuesday. The horses are now kept at a breeding station outside Prague.

Over the next five years, some 40 Przewalski horses from Czechia will be transported to the Altyn Dala steppe. The operation will be carried out under the auspices of Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

The Przewalski horse is a rare subspecies native to Mongolia, which became extinct in the wild in the 1960s. Prague Zoo has spearheaded international efforts to save the horse, breeding it and returning it to its natural environment.

A shipment of 20,000 vaccines against whooping cough from Canada will reach doctors within days, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said, adding that distributors expect to receive them on Tuesday.

Because of a high incidence of whooping cough, doctors have seen a growing interest in vaccinations in recent weeks, with more than 45,000 people getting inoculated against the disease, compared to 24,000 last year.

There were 1,494 new cases of whooping cough registered in Czechia last week, the biggest weekly increase since the start of this year. The total number of cases so far this year is 7,888, the most in one year since 1959, when the vaccine was introduced.