“Assertions that ‘there is no evidence of illicit transfer of EEUM defense articles provided to Ukraine’ sidestep the reality that an accurate, up-to-date inventory of U.S.- supplied weapons in Ukraine—which the DOD IG report demonstrates that the U.S. does not have—is necessary to determine whether weapons have fallen into the wrong hands.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator JD Vance (R-OH) provided a memo to his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate regarding a recent Department of Defense Inspector General report which found widespread failures in the oversight and tracking of American weapons sent to Ukraine.
The memo reads, in part:
Background: A recent Department of Defense Inspector General report “undermines two years of lavish assurances from the administration that rigorous monitoring would keep U.S. military aid given to Ukraine from being misused […] despite the country’s longstanding reputation for corruption,” as the Associated Press put it on January 11.
DOD IG Report: The January 2024 report, the latest in a series of government watchdog publications on shortcomings in monitoring U.S. aid to Ukraine, documents the failures of both the Biden administration and the Ukrainian Armed Forces to properly track U.S.-supplied weapons. Its focus is on enhanced end-use monitoring (EEUM), a designation reserved for weapons that “incorporate sensitive technology,” are “particularly vulnerable to diversion or other misuse,” or “whose diversion or other misuse could have serious consequences.”
The report found that $1.005 billion out of $1.699 billion worth of EEUM-designated weapons sent to Ukraine—a staggering 59 percent of the total value—“remained delinquent,” i.e., were not tracked according to DOD standards.
Bottom line: Claims of radical transparency and tracking of U.S. weapons in Ukraine are simply not accurate. Assertions that “there is no evidence of illicit transfer of EEUM defense articles provided to Ukraine” sidestep the reality that an accurate, up-to-date inventory of U.S.- supplied weapons in Ukraine—which the DOD IG report demonstrates that the U.S. does not have—is necessary to determine whether weapons have fallen into the wrong hands. The DOD IG found that while revised inventory processes have “contributed to an improved delinquency rate,” “significant personnel limitations and accountability challenges remain.”
Read the full memo here and below. Read more from Fox News here.
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