‘It is a war’: Pentagon dismisses reports about Ukraine aid misconduct

The Pentagon Wednesday brushed off hundreds of reports of misconduct concerning US weapons aid to Ukraine, which already suffers from limited oversight.

The substantial weapons aid sent to Ukraine funded by American taxpayers over the last year appears to have entered a vacuum of accountability, with little oversight and no action to date taken on hundreds of complaints of misuse.

Ukraine has so far received over $32.5 billion from the United States in weapons and weapons funding since Russia’s invasion in February last year and is slated to receive another $2.6 billion Monday. According to Pentagon officials, the US is likely to continue sending Ukraine weapons aid for years after the war ends.

But as Frontline News reported last December, the Biden administration has not been tracking its contributions to Ukraine citing “chaos on the ground” as the reason there are no US inspectors in Ukraine overseeing the use of American taxpayer funds. Instead, the United States has relied on Ukraine soldiers themselves to track the aid, in addition to a mobile app as part of a “public-private partnership project” which will allow photos and videos to be uploaded to a blockchain platform. 

In a report last month, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) explained how weak US oversight over weapons aid to Afghanistan made it easier for smugglers and America’s enemies to get a hold of the weapons, and said the same thing is “unavoidable” regarding US weapons aid to Ukraine.

“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,” SIGAR wrote. “Nonetheless, delayed oversight comes at a cost.”

In January, the Department of Defense (DOD), State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) published a plan for oversight of US funding to Ukraine. The plan involves a hotline for each of the three groups to receive complaints of misconduct regarding US aid to Ukraine. If the complaints are found credible, they are referred to the offices of the inspectors general (OIGs) for investigation.

But in a report published Monday, the three governmental groups note that out of 189 complaints referred to the OIGs, the inspectors general were unable to identify any instances of fraud, waste or abuse.

When a reporter asked about these hundreds of complaints, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said he was unaware of them but that Ukrainian officials are also concerned about accountability.

“I’m not aware of — of those specific reports. We haven’t seen any evidence that — that there’s been any egregious misconduct when it comes to managing the security assistance that’s gone into Ukraine,” said Kirby at a White House press briefing Wednesday.

“I would note that the Ukrainian officials also share our concerns about making sure there’s proper accountability and transparency of things getting in and moving around the battlefield.”

Kirby then acknowledged that while US aid to Ukraine is funded by American taxpayers, “it is a war.”

“It is important to remember — I would add just one last point — it is a war,” said Kirby. “And we all want to have as much oversight and accountability as possible. Of course, we do. It’s taxpayer-funded equipment and systems that are going to Ukraine, but it is a war. And real people are fighting and real people are dying. And in battle, you can’t predict every single — the perfect, secure movement of every single item that every single sol- soldier takes into the fight with him or her.”

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley told Congress Tuesday that accountability mechanisms for weapons aid to Ukraine lacks rigor.

“There are some means and mechanisms of doing some accountability. It is not as rigorous as you might think,” said Milley, though he expressed his confidence that the weapons aid is being used responsibly because “you can see the accountability on the battlefield”.