Pentagon accounting error overvalued military aid to Ukraine by over $6 billion
Mike Brest
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The Department of Defense overestimated the value of the military aid it provided to Ukraine over the course of the war by roughly $6 billion.
It overvalued the aid provided to Ukraine by $3.6 billion in fiscal 2023 and $2.6 billion for the year prior, for a total of $6.2 billion, deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh confirmed on Tuesday. The newly found funds are eligible for the administration to use for additional aid to Ukraine.
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DOD uncovered the mistake in March but disclosed in mid-May that it had unintentionally been tallying the equipment provided to Ukraine as much more expensive than it should’ve been calculated at because the department had been using the figure not for the weapons the military was sending to Ukraine, but the total of the more sophisticated weapons officials were replacing them with, a senior defense official told the Washington Examiner at the time.
“These valuation errors in no way limit or restricted the size of any of our [presidential drawdown authority packages] or impacted the provision of support to Ukraine. And while the DoD retains the authority to utilize the recaptured PDA, this has no bearing on appropriated USA AI or Ukraine PDA replenishment funding approved by Congress,“ Singh said.
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The official used an example of the United States providing M777s to Ukraine from existing stockpiles while replacing them with a more expensive High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. The department had been using the cost of the HIMARS to calculate aid to Ukraine instead of what it actually provided — in this instance, the cheaper M777.
When the department initially disclosed the error, the official said the overestimation was roughly $3 billion.