U.S. Can’t Track More than Half of Weapons Provided to Ukraine

The Pentagon audit counters the Biden administration’s assurances about taking measures to prevent misuse of US aid. The USA cannot trace arms and military equipment worth over 1 billion dollars transferred to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion. This is evidenced by the results of an audit conducted by the Pentagon. This means that 59% of the US military equipment worth $1.7 billion transferred to Ukraine remains “unaccounted”, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General of the Defense Department. On Thursday Biden administration officials stressed that nothing indicates the weapons were stolen. However, the audit counters the administration’s assurances that strict monitoring is preventing misuse of U.S. military aid. “There remains no credible evidence of illicit diversion of U.S.-provided advanced conventional weapons from Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said. Noting that disinformation from the Russian side claims otherwise, Ryder added: “In fact, we are watching Ukraine employing these capabilities on the battlefield. And they use them effectively.” The Pentagon Inspector General’s report says the Defense Department failed to conduct an accurate stocktaking by serial number of these defense articles for Ukraine as required.