Thursday May 18
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has overcounted the value of the weaponry it has sent to Ukraine by at least $3 billion, an error that could eliminate the administration’s need to ask Congress for more money to keep Kyiv in the fight this spring, people familiar with the situation said.
The military services inadvertently used a higher value for at least some of the weaponry the Pentagon sent to Ukraine, using valuations for new equipment instead of the older gear pulled out of U.S. stockpiles, the people said.
The Pentagon, which has an annual budget of about $860 billion, has long been plagued by accounting errors and has never had a clean, departmentwide audit, most recently failing an external study by multiple firms last year.
An internal audit of the Ukraine transfers discovered the error in March, and officials said the newly identified surplus could obviate the Biden administration’s need to seek additional funding from Congress for next year. The Pentagon has earmarked more than $44 billion in military aid to help Ukraine defend itself since Russia invaded in February 2022, and the Pentagon says the error leaves it with $3 billion more to spend.
Newsletter Sign-up
What’s News
Catch up on the headlines, understand the news and make better decisions, free in your inbox every day.
“During our regular oversight process of presidential drawdown packages, the Department discovered inconsistencies in equipment valuation for Ukraine,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh in a statement. “In some cases, ‘replacement cost’ rather than ‘net book value’ was used, therefore overestimating the value of the equipment drawn down from U.S. stocks.”
For example, the Pentagon overstated the cost of replacing the M777 howitzers it provided to Ukraine by looking at the price tag on the Himars mobile missile launcher system, a far more advanced system slated to succeed the older artillery pieces in the U.S. arsenal. Overall, that cost difference resulted in an overcounting of $75 million, a Pentagon official said.
Pentagon officials have previously said they would look to replace stocks with more modern versions of the equipment being sent to Ukraine, such as Javelin antitank missiles and the replacement for the Stinger antiaircraft missile, known as Shorad.