Some of the more than $113 billion worth of weapons and military equipment the U.S. shipped to Ukraine for its fight against Russia couldn’t be used in combat operations because of improper maintenance and poor conditions at U.S. Army warehouses in Europe where they were stored.
It resulted in delays and increased costs to repair damaged equipment before the firepower could be sent to the battlefield, according to “Operation Atlantic Resolve-Including U.S. Government Activities Related to Ukraine,” a just-released report to Congress by the inspectors general from the Defense and State departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
IG investigators found that manifests on military cargo aircraft were incomplete and led to a “lack of visibility” of equipment arriving at transfer points inside Europe. Also, the Pentagon didn’t properly track $1 billion worth of sophisticated weapons and other military equipment sent to Ukraine that require special monitoring, such as Javelin and Stinger missiles and night-vision devices.
The U.S. government coordinates military assistance to Ukraine under the framework of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which was originally launched in response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Congress designated Robert P. Storch, the Pentagon’s inspector general, as the lead IG for Operation Atlantic Resolve. The combined IG offices have nearly 400 people assigned to track the operation’s funding in the U.S. and Europe.
More than 50 nations are supporting Ukraine, of which the U.S. is the largest donor, in a conflict that has grown to become the largest land war in Europe since the end of World War II. It has left hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides and displaced millions of Ukrainian civilians from their homes.
Ukraine has held its ground on the battlefield against much larger Russian forces but has been unsuccessful in reclaiming captured territory after two years of war.
Limited supplies of artillery and air defense ammunition continue to be a “significant challenge” to Kyiv, the IG investigators said.
“The high rate of fire has also resulted in artillery systems being employed beyond their recommended maintenance schedules, which exposes (Ukrainian) soldiers to increased risks of weapons failure,” the report said.
The report noted that the Kremlin is facing its own challenges as a war it thought would be over in weeks heads toward its third year. Russian commanders and their staffs suffer from poor situational awareness, a rigid command-and-control system and a toxic leadership culture, the report noted.
“These failings have reduced maneuverability and the effectiveness of long-range strikes,” the report said. “They have weakened overall Russian military battlefield capability.”
A manpower shortage has restricted Russia’s capacity to conduct offensive operations in Ukraine, despite a recent mobilization of 300,000 soldiers and plans to increase its military to 1.5 million troops by 2026, IG officials said.