The United States cannot trace more than $1 billion of weapons and military equipment provided to Ukraine for the war, according to a Pentagon report released Thursday.
The report by the Defence Department’s Office of Inspector General, the Pentagon’s watchdog, said that 59 percent of the $1.7 billion in defence equipment the US provided to Ukraine, which was supposed to protect from misuse or theft, remained “unused.”
While Biden administration officials stressed Thursday that there was no evidence the weapons had been stolen, the report undermines two years of administration assurances that rigorous monitoring would keep US military aid provided to Ukraine from being misused.
The watchdog commission’s findings, which call into question the United States’ ability to ensure that its weapons are not stolen, were released at perhaps the most inopportune time for the Biden administration. As existing funds for aid to Ukraine run out, the president and other senior officials are urging Congress to urgently approve a sweeping package of additional military support for Kyiv, but the debate is deadlocked as Republicans push for sweeping changes to US border policy.
The report does not conclude that aid to Ukraine was actually diverted from the front lines, as that is beyond the scope of the inspector general’s investigation. Senior Pentagon and State Department officials responded by saying they were confident that US support for Ukraine was not stolen and that the accounting requirements were unrealistic in wartime. Brig Gen Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters:
There remains no credible evidence of illicit diversion of US-provided advanced conventional weapons from Ukraine. The fact is, we observed the Ukrainians employing these capabilities on the battlefield. We’re seeing them use them effectively.
The Defence Department “did not fully comply with the EEUM program requirements for defence article accountability in a hostile environment,” said the report, which examined the period up to June 2023.
Opposition Republicans in the House of Representatives have for months ignored Mr Biden’s request to Congress for $105bn for Ukraine, Israel and other national security purposes. On Thursday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there was no money left for additional military aid packages for Ukraine.
The US has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, including major systems such as air defence. End-use monitoring was necessary for equipment with sensitive technology and smaller size, making it more vulnerable to arms trafficking.
Reasons for inadequate monitoring included limited staffing; the fact that procedures for conducting end-use monitoring in the combat zone were not put in place until December 2022; restrictions on observers’ movement within Ukraine; and a lack of internal controls over inventory, the report said.
Kirby said administration officials “have been interested for many months in improving end-use reporting for materials provided to Ukraine.”
The report did not attempt to determine whether the aid was diverted. It notes that the Defence Department’s inspector general’s office now has people working in Ukraine and that its criminal investigators are still looking into allegations of criminal use of security assistance.
