The Pentagon’s accounting error could mean more money is available for military aid to Ukraine as a counter-offensive against Russian forces approaches.
The US Defense Department overestimated the value of weapons and other military equipment delivered to Ukraine by about $3 billion, officials said, an accounting error that could lead to more weapons being sent to Kiev.
In many of the military aid packages sent to Ukraine, the Defense Department chose to draw on existing U.S. stockpiles of older, existing items because it would need to ship them more quickly, officials said.
The accounting error was the result of assigning a higher than justifiable value to older guns taken from those existing stocks.
“During our regular monitoring of presidential shooting packages, the ministry found inconsistencies in equipment valuation for Ukraine. In some cases, “replacement cost” was used instead of “net book value,” overestimating the value of equipment taken from U.S. inventories,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Thursday.
A defense official told the Associated Press that the Pentagon is still trying to determine exactly how much the total value of the surplus will be. The Reuters news agency quoted a US defense official as saying it is possible that the amount of overvalued weapons could reach more than $3 billion as the Pentagon investigates the situation more thoroughly.
The result could mean that the Defense Ministry will have more money available to send to Ukraine as a long-awaited offensive against Russian forces approaches.
Addressing the cost discrepancies, a senior defense official explained to Reuters that in the case of 155mm howitzer artillery ammunition, more than 1.5 million shells of which have been sent to Ukraine, each cost about $800 at current prices. But the true cost of each shell, delivered every year to U.S. military supplies for decades, should be averaged at a much lower price, the official said.
To date, the US has provided Ukraine with nearly $37 billion in military aid since Russia invaded in February 2022. Most of that was in weapon systems, millions of ammunition and ammunition cartridges, and an array of trucks, sensors, radars and others taken from Pentagon stockpiles and quickly sent to Ukraine.
“The Defense Department’s change in evaluating the cost of weapons sent to Ukraine is a big mistake,” said US Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Our priority should be a Ukrainian victory over Putin. Unilaterally changing military aid calculations is an attempt at deception and undermines this goal,” he said.
Singh, the Pentagon spokeswoman, said the accounting error had not limited US aid to Ukraine or hindered the ability to send aid to the battlefield.