The US Department of Defense (DoD) is facing challenges in assessing the cost of military items sent to Ukraine due to the vague definitions of value in the Foreign Assistance Act, as per the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Last June, the DoD acknowledged a $6.2 billion error stemming from its overvaluation of military items provided to the Kiev regime.
On June 13, 2024, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) raised a red flag over the Pentagon's failure to implement updated policies to tackle its accounting errors. According to preliminary estimates, the department overvalued defense equipment provided to Ukraine by an additional $1.9 billion.
"Improperly valuing defense articles provided under Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) risks undermining confidence in how the DoD reports the using PDA for Ukraine and other partners," the DoD OIG report said.
The apparent waste of funds related to the provision of military aid to the Kiev regime has been exacerbated by suspicions of Ukrainian corruption.
In January, the DoD OIG concluded that officials and diplomats in the US and Europe had failed to quickly or fully account for around 40,000 weapons sent to the front.
The same month, Ukrainian contractors and Defense Ministry officials were accused of embezzling nearly $40 million allocated to buying 100,000 mortar shells, as per Ukraine's Security Service (SBU).
Watchdogs allege the figure of misappropriated funds could be higher. Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) also refers to growing concerns over Ukrainian weapons smuggling.