U.S. defense and diplomatic officials improperly tracked almost $2 billion in weapons provided to Ukraine as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion, raising questions about the government’s ability to monitor foreign aid, according to an inspector general report.
The investigation focused on how the Defense Department kept tabs on nearly 40,000 items that were considered sensitive and especially vulnerable to smuggling operations, according to The New York Times, which received a copy of the report.
As of June 2, the U.S. had transferred to Ukraine at least $1.7 billion in items that by law qualify for enhanced end-use monitoring, but Pentagon officials failed to compile full or timely inventories on 69% of the total value, according to the report, released Thursday in a redacted form.
The Defense Department’s inability to input items into government databases or confirm their location in a timely manner “may increase the risk of theft or diversion,” the report found.
“Achieving a complete picture of EEUM-designated defense articles in Ukraine will be difficult as the inventory continues to change, and accuracy and completeness will likely only become more difficult over time,” the report says.
The items under end-use monitoring, or EEUM, requirements include relatively small items such as Javelin anti-tank weapons, Stinger anti-aircraft weapons, one-way attack drones, and night vision goggles, according to the report.
Figures depicting the total number of items are redacted in the public copy. But as of June, the U.S. had provided to Ukraine more than 10,000 Javelins, more than 2,5600 Stingers, 750 Switchblade suicide drones, 430 medium-range air-to-air missiles, and 23,000 night vision devices, the Times reported.
Lawmakers received a copy of the report Wednesday, according to the Times.
The inspector general’s review didn’t determine whether arms dealers actually had stolen the weapons. “It was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance,” the report states.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, officials in charge of monitoring the equipment as it passes through transport hubs in Poland (and eventually reaches Ukraine’s front lines) failed to meet a 90-day reporting requirement, the inpsector general concluded. That was mostly due to a lack of staff and travel restrictions within Ukraine, limiting how far U.S. officials could trace the equipment.
Although tracking has improved with introduction of handheld scanners and more “robust” procedures, those same challenges continued to limit monitoring through the end of the report’s investigation period.
In addition, the Defesse Department didn’t have any policies in place for tracking EEUM items in areas with active hostilities, inserting some confusion and delays into the tracking process, the report says.
Lawmakers in recent months intensified pressures for increased oversight of weapons, equipment, and humanitarian assistance devoted to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. The items in the watchdog report represent just a fraction of the nearly $45 billion in security aid the U.S. has committed to Ukraine and highlights the challenges of end-use monitoring in a warzone.
The Pentagon did not dispute the finding of delayed or incomplete accounting in a response included in the report. But it reiterated that the ultimate objective of the program—to ensure relative confidence in a foreign partner’s ability to meet end-use commitments—was being achieved.
“Real-time accuracy” in the database “is not practical under wartime conditions,” Alexandra Baker, acting under secretary of defense for policy, wrote.
This report originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
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