Bombshell: Defense Department Failed to Keep Track of Ukrainian Weapons Worth Over $1 Billion
Jose Nino
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The Defense Department has apparently failed to adequately track over $1 billion worth of weapons that the United States government has provided to Ukraine, per a watchdog’s report.
These new revelations now cast doubt about the US Congress’s continued commitment to supplying military aid to Ukraine.
The report came from the Defense Department’s Inspector-General. That said, the report did not provide an assessment on whether the armaments had been diverted but discovered that the US did not appropriately keep tabs on at least $1 billion of $1.7 billion in weapons doled out to Ukraine since Russia invaded it on February 24, 2022.
The report showed that the weapons sent out consisted of shoulder-fired missiles such as Javelins and Stingers, switchblade or “kamikaze” drones, and night vision goggles.
The equipment was allocated towards so-called enhanced end-use monitoring, which only covers a small portion of the over $44 billion in lethal military aid the US has supplied since Russia kicked off its invasion.
“It was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance,” the report noted, which was published on January 11. It added that the alarming rates of missing or unaccounted for armaments “may increase the risk of theft of diversion”.
A Defense Department official stated: “There is no credible evidence of illicit diversion of US-provided advanced conventional weapons from Ukraine.”
The debate on giving the green light to further assistance for Ukraine has grown increasingly tense in Congress, especially on the Republican side of the aisle. Republicans in the US House and Senate have urged President Joe Biden and Democrats in both chambers of Congress to agree to a border security and immigration package as a condition to approving tens of billions in further military aid to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine.
Republicans have also called on the Biden regime to provide more accountability for the military aid on top of spelling out a strategy for US support to Ukraine and a pathway to settling the conflict.
The Ukraine war has been a disaster. From the get-go, Russia has enjoyed escalatory dominance over Ukraine. No amount of economic and military aid was going to change that.
If the aid continues to Ukraine, it will cease to exist as a coherent nation as Russia will pursue more escalatory measures and demand more territory to ensure its security.
That’s how the cookie is crumbling in this disastrous conflict.
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