No US weapons have fallen into wrong hands in Ukraine, Pentagon says
Mike Brest
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The Department of Defense has no knowledge of any of the weapons provided to Ukraine finding their way into the wrong hands, officials said on Tuesday.
The Biden administration has provided Ukraine with roughly $30 billion worth of aid, and the topic of oversight on these weapons has garnered more attention in recent weeks as House Republicans gained the majority and vowed additional oversight.
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“We don’t see any evidence of diversion in our reporting,” Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. “We think the Ukrainians are using properly what they’ve been given.”
Similarly, Robert Storch, the Defense Department inspector general, also testified in front of the committee, and he told lawmakers, “We have not substantiated any such instances” of U.S. troops instances of sensitive weapons getting lost or diverted to those not authorized to have them.
“We’re laser focused on this issue,” he said. “We’re doing audits and evaluations that look at the weapons from the time they begin at the port, while they’re transferred, as they get to the transshipment points and then go into the country.”
The Department of Defense inspector general’s office has 20 ongoing and planned audits and evaluations for U.S. aid to Ukraine, while the office has more than 90 employees to conduct them.
Earlier this month, committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Romania and Poland, where they were able to get a better understanding of the oversight currently provided.
“As a bipartisan Congressional delegation, we traveled to Poland and Romania to conduct oversight of this process. We came away with a clear understanding of the various safeguards the U.S. government, in partnership with the Ukrainians and other nations, have put in place to ensure each article is accounted for and tracked to the frontline of the war,” Reps. John Garamendi (D-CA), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Lisa McClain (R-MI), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Mark Alford (R-MO), and Rogers said in a statement at the time.
The concern about U.S. weapons getting misused has gotten more attention in recent weeks, especially in the wake of a corruption scandal that resulted in Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov’s resignation last month.
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The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released a new report on Monday. In it, investigators said it’s “likely unavoidable” that U.S. aid to Ukraine will ultimately end up in adversaries’ possession.
“There is an understandable desire amid a crisis to focus on getting money out the door and to worry about oversight later, but too often that creates more problems than it solves. Given the ongoing conflict and the unprecedented volume of weapons being transferred to Ukraine, the risk that some equipment ends up on the black market or in the wrong hands is likely unavoidable,” the report said, describing the amount of aid the United States has provided as an “unprecedented volume.”