Oleg Davygora19:08, 11.01.24

A Defense Department inspector general report released yesterday found no evidence that the weapons were misused.

The Defense Department’s inspector general found that U.S. officials and diplomats in Washington and Europe failed to quickly or fully account for all of the nearly 40,000 weapons sent to Ukraine .

According to  The New York Times, more than $1 billion worth of shoulder-fired missile launchers, kamikaze drones and night-vision equipment were poorly supervised by American officials.

A Defense Department inspector general report released yesterday found no evidence that the weapons were misused after they were transported to a U.S. military logistics center in Poland or onward to the battlefields of Ukraine.

“Determining whether such assistance was misused was beyond the scope of our assessment and review,” the report stated.

But the report found that U.S. officials and diplomats in Washington and Europe failed to quickly or fully account for nearly 40,000 weapons that by law should have been closely monitored because their technology and relatively small size make them attractive targets for weapons smugglers.

A high percentage of guns going missing or otherwise immediately unaccounted for in government databases “may increase the risk of theft or diversion.” The number of weapons examined in the report represents only a small portion of the roughly $50 billion in military equipment that the United States has sent to Ukraine since 2014. 

Still, the Pentagon investigation provides the first glimpse into efforts to account for the riskiest tools of American military power that have been rushed into Ukraine over the past two years. A growing number of lawmakers, skeptical of the spending, are resisting sending more aid to Kyiv and demanding oversight.

The report does not specify how many of the 39,139 pieces of military equipment transferred to Ukraine in the years before and after the conflict were considered “lost.”

As of last June, the United States supplied Ukraine with more than 10,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles, 2,500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, approximately 750 Kamikaze Switchblade drones, 430 medium-range air-to-air missiles, and 23,000 night-time surveillance equipment. visions.

Dangerous combat conditions have made it nearly impossible for Defense Department officials to go to the front lines to ensure the weapons are being used as intended, according to Pentagon and State Department officials responsible for tracking the weapons.

The required accounting procedures “are not practical in a dynamic and hostile wartime environment,” Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Alexandra N. Baker said in response to a previous draft of the report dated Nov. 15.

She also noted that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv does not have enough Department of Defense personnel to easily track the most “sensitive” weapons and equipment, of which she said there are currently more than 50,000 in Ukraine “and growing.” . 

(C)UNIAN 2024