Pentagon Cannot Track $1 Billion in Arms It Sent to Ukraine: Report

Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder holds a press conference at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Oct. 19, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The United States cannot track more than $1 billion in weapons and other military equipment that it provided to Ukraine, according to a Pentagon audit.

Some 59 percent of $1.7 billion in defense gear remains “delinquent,” according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

That gear was subject to enhanced end-use monitoring (EEUM), which requires additional layers of verification and protections for certain items including Stinger and Tomahawk missiles, uncrewed aircraft systems, and small-diameter bombs.

The audit says that the Pentagon “did not maintain an accurate inventory” of items and failed to update key databases in a timely manner.

Several confounding variables—including a limited number of personnel, restricted movement in Ukraine, and a lack of controls to validate key data—were to blame, the report said.

Importantly, however, the report could not verify whether the delinquent systems were illicitly diverted from their intended endpoint or merely not listed in the correct databases.

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“It was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance,” the report said.

“... significant personnel limitations and accountability challenges remain.”

Biden Aid to Ukraine Under Fire

The Biden administration has been keen to insist that there is no evidence the untracked weapons have been stolen or otherwise diverted from their intended purpose.

“There remains no credible evidence of illicit diversion of U.S.-provided advanced conventional weapons from Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters.

“The fact is, we observed the Ukrainians employing these capabilities on the battlefield. We’re seeing them use them effectively.”

Any reports to the contrary, Gen. Ryder said, were Russian disinformation.

Regardless of the Pentagon’s confidence in the matter, the audit undermines two years of assurances from the Biden administration that it was employing rigorous monitoring capable of preventing U.S. military aid to Ukraine from being misused. That could hurt the administration’s attempts to push billions more dollars worth of weaponry into the East European nation.

President Joe Biden is currently struggling to win over support for a mammoth $105 billion supplemental defense spending bill, which would send an additional $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.

The supplemental request is currently stalled in Congress, where Democratic and Republican lawmakers disagree on how to best balance funding priorities to Ukraine, Israel, and the United States’ own southern border.

President Biden and numerous department heads have said that the move would be good for the American economy, but detractors have accused the administration of war profiteering, prioritizing the profits of defense companies over the nation’s national security.

That accusation has not been helped by the Pentagon’s continued failure to pass an audit of its accounts for six years in a row. As of November, only seven of the Pentagon’s 29 sub-agencies received a passing grade on the Department-wide audit, presenting no improvement from the previous year. The systems that track some $3.8 trillion in military assets fail to do what they are supposed to do, according to the independent audit.

The new report on oversight in Ukraine likewise says that the Pentagon failed to even maintain accurate serial-numbers for some defense articles in Ukraine as required by U.S. policy.

Defense Department officials told auditors they expected to have systems for improved oversight in place by next year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report