The Pentagon told Congress it doesn’t have the money to replace all of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The Defense Department only has enough money to give weapons to Ukraine for six months.
The letter comes after Congress eliminated Ukraine funding from the stopgap bill it passed over the weekend:
Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord told House and Senate leaders there is $1.6 billion left of the $25.9 billion Congress provided to replenish U.S. military stocks that have been flowing to Ukraine. The weapons include millions of rounds of artillery, rockets and missiles critical to Ukraine’s counteroffensive aimed at taking back territory gained by Russia in the war.In addition, the U.S. has about $5.4 billion left to provide weapons and equipment from its stockpiles. The U.S. would have already run out of that funding if the Pentagon hadn’t realized earlier this year that it had overvalued the equipment it had already sent, freeing up about $6.2 billion. Some of that has been sent in recent months.
Sending Ukraine military aid has already put a dent in our forces.
McCord warned, “Failure to replenish our military services on a timely basis could harm our military’s readiness.”
The stopgap bill expires mid-November. Congress passed the bill to give lawmakers more time to figure out how to fund the government for fiscal year 2024.
McCord told Congress the Defense Department cannot use the money it receives in the stopgap bill to provide more aid to Ukraine.
Since February 2021, the U.S. has given Ukraine over $74 billion, including $44 billion in military aid.
The Ukrainian government has tried to assure America that it uses all aid in a responsible manner.
The Pentagon has tried to assure Americans that it has kept track and managed all the aid to Ukraine.
In May and June, the Pentagon admitted it overvalued the military equipment sent to Ukraine by $3 billion. Then the department doubled the amount to $6.2 billion.
That’s no chump change.
Then, in July, a Pentagon watchdog discovered that criminals, volunteers, and arm traffickers stole a bunch of weapons and equipment meant for Ukraine in 2022:
A Pentagon inspector general report, obtained by Military.com through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that, in the opening months of the war in Ukraine, American military forces were unable to monitor where much of the military equipment being sent into the country was ending up — showing a violation of U.S. law and suggesting some gear fell into the hands of Russians and criminals.At the time, the U.S. had shipped a wide variety of equipment to Ukraine, including thousands of Stinger and Javelin missiles; howitzers; more than 10,000 grenade launchers; C-4 explosives; and 59 million rounds of small-arms ammunition. Larger, more complex systems included National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS; newly developed Phoenix Ghost drones; and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.
The IG report also slammed the Pentagon for not doing more to track the equipment:
Although the report does not specifically say the weapons were provided by the U.S., the example is cited in an otherwise heavily redacted section that deals with how American-supplied gear was largely tracked by the Ukrainians and not U.S. officials.The IG noted that effective monitoring of the large amount of gear the U.S. was providing required people on the ground in Ukraine to conduct compliance assessment visits and accountability assessments.”The inability of [Defense Department] personnel to visit areas where equipment provided to Ukraine was being used or stored significantly hampered [Kyiv’s Office of Defense Cooperation]’s ability to execute [end-use monitoring],” according to the IG report.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY