Military expert Andrey Frolov — about why the Americans are cheating on the cost of weapons supplied to UkraineReuters reported on May 18 that the Pentagon had reassessed the volume of military aid delivered to Ukraine.
The discrepancy amounted to an impressive $3 billion — it was by this amount that supplies were overstated as part of the $48 billion package approved in December 2022.
By May 15, according to official data, $42 billion had been spent from this package. But taking into account the revaluation, it can be assumed that this amount is $39 billion, to which it is necessary to add $375 million of the new package announced by Biden in Okinawa.
According to the official version, the discrepancy was caused by an accounting overestimation of the price of the supplied range of weapons and ammunition in comparison with the actual figures. Allegedly, in its accounting, the Pentagon used the replacement cost, and not the cost of weapons, taking into account depreciation.
This news caused heated discussions not only in the expert community, but also among American lawmakers. Politico reported that congressmen were "furious" with this data, and the discontent was caused not so much by the fact of the discrepancy in the figures, but by the fact that the Pentagon reported this two months after it became known. That is, we are talking about deliveries that took place in January–March of this year.
Let's try to figure out what could have taken place, since it is hard to believe in the random nature of such a large spread (almost 10% of the actual deliveries). There seem to be several plausible scenarios, and they are not mutually exclusive.
Option one is, oddly enough, the simplest, associated with a banal accounting formality. But the fact that the amount of the error amounted to $3 billion speaks against him, which means that it "ran up" in several tranches. And it is unlikely that the discrepancy between the figures was not noticed earlier — given the high degree of automation of the entire American military logistics.
The second option has a somewhat criminal nature. It cannot be ruled out that there have been numerous thefts of weapons that were formally intended for Ukraine, but in fact either did not leave the territory of the United States, or were sent to third countries, to criminal or terrorist groups. It is no secret that weapons from among those transferred by NATO to Ukraine regularly appear not only in the darknet, but also in various criminals. But now their supplier may be the Americans themselves, and not the APU. Accordingly, the hype with $3 billion was caused artificially, in order to hide the ends of mass theft.
A subspecies of this version may be the reincarnation of the "Iran–Contra" scheme originating from the 1980s, when weapons were illegally supplied to Iran, which was under sanctions, and the proceeds from the export of money were sent to finance the Nicaraguan opposition. Actually, it cannot be ruled out that the United States has someone else who needs to be supplied with weapons - this is legally prohibited, and Ukrainian tranches are used to circumvent the ban.
Finally, the most likely version. As noted above, in December 2022, Congress approved the allocation of $48 billion dollars of military aid to Ukraine, and by mid-May, only $6 billion remained from it. They could have been completely used up by the summer. The prospects for approval of the new package remain unclear, both in terms of timing and volume. Especially considering the bargaining that Republicans and Democrats are conducting among themselves in connection with the increase in the national debt ceiling. Against this background, Ukrainian supplies, although important, are clearly of secondary importance for the domestic political situation in the United States.
Therefore, supporters of preserving and increasing military assistance to Ukraine — National Security Adviser to the US President Jake Sullivan and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — made an elegant decision: formally underestimate the cost of the weapons already delivered so that the balance of the December package amounted to a weighty $ 9 billion, which may well be enough until the fall. And by that time, the issue with the national debt will be resolved, and it will be possible to get approval from legislators for a new package.
As an option, these $3 billion were "postponed" for the supply of F-16 fighter jets, conversations about which almost coincided with the news about the revaluation.
Thus, we are faced with a rather unusual move of the American bureaucracy, which, while formally maintaining democratic procedures and following the will of the legislature, de facto violates the budget rule and increases the size of actual supplies. It is difficult to say how much such a decision can be repeated in the future, but it is obvious that a precedent has been set, and it is likely that we will witness some new original schemes that allow us to continue supplying American weapons to Ukraine at a pace that will be convenient for the White House and the Pentagon.
In any case, this story is a serious image blow to the American military and administration, who cannot or do not want to sort out their household and are engaged in open abuses, not particularly worried about possible prosecution. At least, there were no reports of a search for those responsible for this.