U.S. Military Can’t Account for All Ukraine Arms Shipments

How sure are you that the weapons and equipment we send to Ukraine will actually end up in the right hands?

In terms of security and economic aid, the United States sent nearly $80 billion to Ukraine from its Western allies. According to two Department of Defense Inspector General (IG) reports released recently, we don’t know where a large amount of this equipment and weapons have ended up. Jordan Cohen and Jonathan Ellis Allen of Reason say that the challenges in Ukraine’s conflict zone make it difficult to track weapons.

According to the Global Organized Crime Index 2021, Ukraine was already one of Europe’s largest markets for illegal arms trafficking before the Russian invasion. Sending arms to Ukraine is like providing oligarchs, crime families, and other criminals with a new lucrative business opportunity.

Two IG reports found several major security flaws within the pipeline of weapons.

The first report concluded that “the Pentagon’s accountability controls are not sufficient to give reasonable assurance that its inventory was accurate and complete” of the defense items that were transferred via Jasionka to Ukraine.

In the second report, it was revealed that the Office of Defense Cooperation – Kyiv had been unable to monitor American military equipment in use. In fact, the monitors were unable to “visit areas in which equipment provided by Ukraine was used or stored.”

The goal is not to enrich criminal gangs or oligarchs, who may be friendly towards the Russians. Losing track of these weapons has serious implications for national security, given that Islamic terrorists are able to easily acquire weapons through existing pipelines.

Washington has provided weapons to any group fighting for Ukraine. Azov Brigade, a neo-Nazi militia that has attacked Ukrainian civilians before and is now fighting Russia against Russia, is one of the groups to receive U.S. arms. The Brigade has been identified by the State Department as a human rights violator and is a key component of the global far-right movement.

Third, loose arms create the risk that hostile actors will obtain highly valuable and confidential U.S. technologies. The State Department developed a plan in October 2022 to train Ukrainian soldiers on tracking highly portable, deadly, and advanced proprietary U.S. weaponry. The plan does note that it will be years before this training has any significant impact.

The U.S. does not sell its most advanced, technologically advanced weapons to countries where there are factions that are hostile to the U.S.

A second thing to keep in mind is that we are further involved in a nuclear conflict by selling arms worth tens or hundreds of billions to Ukraine. Ukraine has ignored our pleas to not use American weapons against Russia. You have to wonder where Moscow’s line is on U.S. weapons that kill a lot of Russian civilians.

Joe Biden’s overconfidence and his arrogance towards Ukraine could go too far, and we may end up in a war where everything is at risk.