(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Confirming what many have suspected for nearly two years, the Defense Department’s inspector general reported Wednesday that the Pentagon failed to properly track more than $1 billion in weaponry sent to Ukraine.
According to the IG report, the Pentagon failed to track roughly $1 billion out of the $1.7 billion in “enhanced end-use monitoring,” or EEUM, weapons sent to Ukraine. EEUM weapons are those that have a high risk for being diverted for other uses, and the Defense Department is supposed to take extra steps to make sure they reach their intended destination.
Weapons designated as EEUM include tomahawk missiles, stinger missiles, night-vision devices, javelins and a variety of other missiles and bombs.
The IG report didn’t say whether any weapons have actually been diverted for other purposes, stating that such issues are “beyond the scope of our evaluation.”
While the IG report focused on EEUM weaponry, there have been credible media reports of widespread theft of all sorts of equipment in Ukraine.
For instance, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh reported last April that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials have siphoned some $400 million in U.S. aid.
Citing at least one unnamed intelligence official, Hersh wrote that Ukraine has been buying diesel fuel at a premium from the country it’s at war with, Russia.
Moreover, Zelenskyy and his cronies have been skimming “untold millions” from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments, according to Hersh.
“One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, ‘although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine,’” Hersh wrote last year.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
