A US official said the White House has “almost zero” ability to track the weapons it is sending to Ukraine. So far, President Joe Biden has approved over $3 billion in arms shipments to Kiev.
Speaking with CNN about the weapons, one source said, “we have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero. It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”
The source said the US lacked personnel “on the ground,” making it nearly impossible to track the movement of weapons. Another source told CNN Ukraine was incentivized to lie to get access to more weapons, saying “It’s a war – every statement is an information operation, every interview. Every Zelensky appearance broadcast is an information operation.”
The US infamously armed the resistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only to have many of those weapons fall into the hand of the Islamic State and other al-Qaeda affiliate groups. The consequence was an Islamic Caliphate that took over large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
Neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion have been incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces. In a recent interview, President Volodymyr Zelensky was asked about the presence of these extremist groups within Ukraine’s military. Zelensky insisted they are “defending our country,” saying “they are what they are.”
The inability to track the arms is not deterring the US from sending weapons to Ukraine. Last week, Biden approved an $800 million weapons package. On Tuesday, White House official Matt Miller said, “we are always preparing the next package of security assistance.”
The US claims the arms transfers have been successful with little interference from Moscow., and a third source speaking with CNN says Russia is not threatening the weapons shipments. The outlet also reported that “it does not appear that Russia has been actively attacking western weapons shipments entering Ukraine – although it is unclear exactly why, especially since the US has intelligence that the Russians want to and have discussed doing so both publicly and privately.”
