The Pentagon’s audit revealed weak control over part of the aid to Kyiv

Part of the US military aid to Ukraine in the amount of more than one billion dollars was not properly monitored by American officials. This is stated in the report of the Pentagon, which mentions the delivery of portable missile systems, kamikaze drones, and night vision devices. The conclusions are given by The New York Times.

The publication notes that the analysis of the American Ministry of Defense increases fears about the possible theft of weapons or their smuggling at a time when Congress has not been able to agree on the allocation of new aid to Kyiv for a long time.

In the report published on Thursday by the inspector general of the US Ministry of Defense, Robert Storch, there is no concrete evidence of non-targeted use of weapons after they were sent to a military logistics center in Poland or further to the front in Ukraine. At the same time, experts found out that the officials of the American military department and diplomats in Washington and Europe could not quickly or fully report on many of the almost 40 thousand weapons, which by law had to be carefully controlled.

The New York Times notes that the report was sent to Congress on Wednesday, and a copy was provided to the newspaper. The next day, Inspector General Storch published an edited version of the document. The auditors emphasize that their task was not to find out whether any weapons were sent for illegal use.

The amount of weapons mentioned in the report represents only a small part of the military supplies worth about 50 billion dollars sent by the USA to Ukraine since 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and parts of the Donbass region, the publication says.

The publication also writes that the conclusions published on Thursday will almost certainly increase skepticism in Congress regarding the provision of further military aid to Ukraine. In the House of Representatives, the Republicans are already blocking the national security spending plan, which will provide an additional 61 billion dollars to Kyiv for military needs, The New York Times reminds.

Representatives of the US President Biden’s administration emphasized on Thursday that there is no indication of the theft of weapons. “There is no credible evidence of illegal leakage from Ukraine of modern conventional weapons transferred to the United States,” Pentagon press secretary Patrick Ryder told Voice of America.

Noting that disinformation from the Russian side claims the opposite, Ryder added: “In fact, we are watching Ukraine use these tools on the battlefield. We see that they are using them effectively.”