The Pentagon discovered $2 billion in additional accounting errors regarding its valuation of missiles, ammo, and other equipment provided to Kiev, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found on Thursday. The Defense Department made a similar claim last year, saying it availed Washington of $6.2 billion in weapons to fuel the Ukraine proxy war with Russia.
This latest report brings the improperly valued military material to a total of $8.2 billion, with the error said to be a result of unclear accounting definitions. In June 2023, the Pentagon insisted that weapons shipped to Ukraine from US military stockpiles, under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), over the past two years were overvalued using the “replacement value” of the arms as opposed to the “depreciated value.” This bought the White House some time to continue sending weapons to Kiev after much of the US funding then allocated for the war had dried up.
In April, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law a massive $95 billion foreign military aid supplemental which included $61 billion to keep the Ukraine war going. This is despite Kiev’s inability to win the war or reclaim significant territory already seized by Russia. After discovering the latest overvaluations, the Pentagon told the GAO it now has another $2 billion in weapons which can be shipped to Ukraine.
“The GAO said a vague definition of value in the Foreign Assistance Act and the absence of specific valuation guidance for [PDA] have led to inconsistencies in the reported value of military aid,” Reuters reported. For instance, 10 vehicles were incorrectly valued at $7,050,000 compared to their zero net book value. The GAO has made some recommendations to Congress as well as the Pentagon to resolve the inconsistencies.
Military aid for Kiev is provided in another form besides PDA, namely the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, whereby aid funds are used to purchase arms directly from the weapons industry. In April, prior to the passing of the $95 billion foreign military aid bill, the Office of Management and Budget revealed the White House had severely under-counted its total spending on the Ukraine war by at least $14 billion. Therefore, Washington has spent a total of $186 billion in its effort to “weaken” Russia using Ukraine as a proxy force. Since the invasion, it has been estimated that approximately 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured.
This article was originally featured at Antiwar.com and is republished with permission.
