Illustration photo – View of the Pentagon building in Washington, where the US Department of Defense is located.
Washington – The United States has found no evidence that some weapons provided to Ukraine end up on the black market. According to Reuters and AFP, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl said this during a hearing in the House of Representatives focused on military aid, which the US provides to the Eastern European country, which has been resisting Russian military aggression for over a year.
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“We see no evidence of significant drift,” Kahl said. “Our assessment is that if some of these systems were diverted, it was done by the Russians who looted things on the battlefield, which happens all the time. But there is no evidence that the Ukrainians diverted them to the black market,” he added.
Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch said his office has so far found no evidence that any of the weapons or billions of dollars in aid the United States has given Ukraine have been lost through corruption or fallen into the wrong hands, according to the AP. At the same time, he pointed out that the investigation is only in the initial phase.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has provided military aid to Ukraine in the amount of almost 32 billion dollars (about 711 billion crowns) since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
Some Republicans – whose party took control of the House of Representatives in January – expressed skepticism about the funds sent to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, writes Reuters. According to her, some members of the party closely related to former US President Donald Trump have called for an end to the aid, even though party leaders in Congress support continued aid to Kiev.
House of Representatives committees, which are led by Republicans, held two hearings on Tuesday, she writes Reuters. According to CNN, another high-ranking official of the Pentagon, Douglas Sims, said, among other things, that it is not in the interest of the Ukrainians to get rid of the delivered weapons. “We see Ukrainian front-line troops effectively using security assistance every day on the battlefield,” Celeste Wallander of the Department of Defense told the hearing.
