Pentagon Says $62 Million In Ukraine Weapons Aid Was ‘Lost Or Destroyed’

(RepublicanReport.org) – In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, starting a war that continues to this day. Since then, countries all over the world have sent support for the sovereign nation to resist a Russian takeover. The United States has sent at least $107 billion in aid to Ukraine. About $70 billion of those packages contained weapons and equipment. However, a recent report showed that some of that equipment was either lost or destroyed.

On June 24, the Inspector General (OIG) with the US Department of Defense (DoD) released a report detailing an evaluation of the DoD’s accountability as it pertained to defense articles sent to Ukraine. It found that the department and the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) reviewed a loss report showing the loss or destruction of enhanced end-use monitoring (EEUM) articles worth $22.9 million between March 2022 and July 2023. The majority of that equipment, 99.4%, were night vision devices.

Additional defense articles worth $39.3 million were also lost or destroyed between August and November 2023, bringing the total to $62.2 million. The contents of the second batch were not detailed in the report. A total of 54.1% of those defense articles were something other than night-vision devices like Stinger Gripstocks, Javelin CLUs, and Javelin Missiles.

The OIG explained that the EEUM report’s timeliness and “lack of thorough analysis of the loss report” prevent the DoD from “understanding…potential violations.” The report is supposed to cover 30 days, but this one spanned 301. Without providing a “timely and complete” assessment, the department “could lose accountability.”

The office recommended that the ODC-Ukraine chief work with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to update the EEUM initial loss notification requirements to provide loss numbers and develop a plan to gather critical information for the final loss report. This should highlight any issues quickly so they can be addressed in a timely manner.

The Pentagon has not released any formal comment about the recent report.