Ukrainian officials use paper records to record US military aid, so they may not always know exactly where weapons handed over to Kyiv will end up.
This question was raised by Acting Pentagon Inspector General Sean O'Donnell in a conversation with Bloomberg.
“These are handwritten receipts.
Everything is on paper, ”said the functionary.
According to him, based on past experience, the Pentagon has an understanding that "as the rate of spending increases," the likelihood of fraud increases.
O'Donnell stressed that his office's focus is on "the full spectrum of government contract fraud": collusion, disqualification or removal of parties, submission of proposals at inappropriate quotations and poor paperwork.
“Inefficient record keeping has been detrimental to many of our investigations into Afghanistan and Iraq,” the official said.
Against this background, he stressed the need to conduct an audit of the accounting system for aid provided to Ukraine, especially taking into account the colossal amounts that are allocated for these purposes.
According to O'Donnell, the US Department of Defense has already authorized more than 7,800 defense contracts worth a total of $2.2 billion, and that's not counting the upcoming stream of more expensive agreements, including HIMARS.
It is noted that the supervisory authority intends to study the use of all additional spending on Ukraine, approved by the US Congress since last year.
Supply of American weapons to Ukraine
© AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
And about.
The Pentagon Inspector General also said that, in addition to checking the system of spending on Ukraine directly, his office intends to study the US agreements on the exchange of intelligence with NATO allies, the effectiveness of Ukrainian military training and the likelihood of redirecting military equipment to the black market.
At the same time, the official noted that NATO officials "appear to be confident that sufficient security measures have been taken for the transfer of weapons."
“As far as we can tell, right now they (Ukrainians. -
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) are making full use of everything that should shoot and explode.
However... this needs to be verified," O'Donnell said.
Billions for Ukraine
On August 24, US President Joe Biden announced the allocation of the largest package of military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $ 2.98 billion. As the US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs Colin Kahl specified on the same day, deliveries will begin in the coming months and will be carried out over several years.
At the same time, a Pentagon spokesman stressed that weapons would be purchased directly from manufacturers, and not allocated from US stocks.
The new package includes NASAMS short and medium-range mobile air defense systems, 155-mm artillery shells, 120-mm mortar ammunition, anti-artillery radar systems, Puma reconnaissance drones, Vampire anti-drone weapons, laser-guided missile systems, equipment for reconnaissance drones ScanEagle and military training funding.
As Kahl emphasized, since the Biden administration came to power, the United States has allocated more than $13.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine ($12.9 billion of them over the past six months).
At the same time, Kyiv constantly demands from the allies to increase supplies, considering the current volumes insufficient.
In particular, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on August 23 that Ukraine needs more multiple launch rocket systems, armored vehicles and large-caliber artillery.
According to him, it is these weapons that allegedly will help Kyiv regain control over a number of territories.
In an interview with L'Express magazine published the next day, Zelensky urged Western countries to provide Ukraine with more powerful air defense systems.
He believes that it will cost the allies less than allocating funds to Kyiv to "cover the trade deficit."
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky
AP
Unrest in Congress
It is worth emphasizing that significant financial and weapons injections into Ukraine have recently been increasingly worrying American lawmakers.
As the newspaper Politico noted in early June, they intend to receive detailed information from the administration on the spending of funds allocated to Kyiv.
The Pentagon, even before the comprehensive assistance to the Republic, had difficulty coping with the requirements of Congress to oversee spending.
In this regard, there is growing concern among congressmen about whether the White House will be able to account for all the "aid" provided to Kyiv.
“The US government sends billions (dollars. -
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) to the Ukrainian people in the form of humanitarian, economic and military assistance ... and the Americans expect strict control from Congress and full accountability from the Department of Defense,” Senator Elizabeth Warren quotes Politico.
Anxiety about the lack of oversight of spending in early July was also expressed on Twitter by congresswoman of Ukrainian origin Victoria Spartz.
According to her, Biden and Zelensky should “stop playing politics,” and Congress should take control of the situation in Ukraine.
Later, on July 11, in an interview with the European Pravda newspaper, she explained that the American parliament was interested in what exactly the funds allocated to Kyiv were spent on.
“For me, the problem is where our money is spent ... We give your country billions of dollars worth of weapons, and we don’t know what is happening to them,” Spartz emphasized.
Her colleague Michael Waltz, in a commentary to The Washington Post on July 8, said that the United States is "legally blind" about how effectively weapons and ammunition are being used in Ukraine and whether they are leaking to the black market.
He also wondered if the Ministry of Defense was "protecting anyone" in Kyiv.
In turn, a member of the House of Representatives Lauren Bobert criticized the allocation of assistance to Ukraine.
According to her, American citizens receive only higher taxes in return.
In the US Congress
© AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Dead end for Washington
Experts note that the Pentagon's fears about Kyiv's "paper" reporting on arms deliveries are not unfounded.
“This is Ukrainian specificity – an extraordinary level of corruption, which has become the hallmark of the country.
I think that Ukraine has already turned into a bottomless hole for everyone for expensive Western weapons and money.
However, without practicing proper reporting, it is very easy for Kyiv to “write off” received weapons in order to earn money on them on the black market, ”Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained in an interview with RT.
According to him, the weapons that the West supplies to Ukraine can already be purchased in the Middle East and Africa.
In this regard, the United States fell into a stalemate, Blokhin believes.
“On the one hand, they need to keep pumping weapons into Ukraine to try and inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
On the other hand, Ukrainian corruption neutralizes all these efforts, hindering the achievement of goals.
However, congress will not allow the White House to simply spend money on Ukraine without appropriate reporting.
Therefore, the Biden administration is now at an impasse, ”said the analyst.
According to Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Military-Political Studies at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sean O'Donnell's statement about the upcoming audit of spending on Ukraine was the result of repeated demands from congressmen to conduct an audit.
“There is also such a domestic political factor as the upcoming midterm congressional elections.
The competition for votes is getting tougher.
Republicans are actively criticizing the Democrats that, instead of solving internal problems, they are spending huge resources on Ukraine, not controlling their fate and thereby depriving ordinary Americans, ”he explained in a conversation with RT.
At the same time, he doubted that a possible check would give any clear results, since if the logistics of supplies can still be traced to the Ukrainian border, then after crossing it, “the trace is lost.”
Director of the Franklin Roosevelt Foundation for the Study of the United States at Moscow State University Yuri Rogulev believes that the initiative of the United States on the planned revision of the system for spending funds provided to Kyiv is directly related to the increase in aid.
“The amounts are growing, so politicians and the public have a question about how these funds are spent.
It's all taxpayers' money, after all.
It is one thing to allocate $100 million, and another thing is $10 billion. These are already incomparable amounts, and therefore they are of interest, especially before congressional elections.
In addition, the Pentagon has always been lame in reporting on military supplies to third countries, so now they will try to justify themselves to legislators and find justifications for their spending, ”the expert said in a comment to RT.
In addition, the Pentagon is now trying to signal to Kyiv that it be more prudent in its requests and manipulations with weapons, Konstantin Blokhin believes.
According to him, it is important for the American administration that Ukraine adheres to the “reference image of a freedom fighter,” and not undermine it by draining Western aid to the black market.
“The United States wanted to turn Ukraine into a kind of outpost of the West on the border with Russia, an instrument of deterrence, so that Ukraine would become a kind of role model for other CIS countries that would decide to move away from Russia.
But they did not succeed because of the ineradicable thirst for profit on the part of Kyiv.
The entrepreneurial spirit of Ukrainian politicians, who were able to turn even a military conflict to their advantage, played a cruel joke on the American establishment, ”Blokhin concluded.