Rocket launchers, precision-guided missiles and billions of dollars’ worth of other advanced US weapons have given Ukraine a fighting chance against Russia before a counteroffensive. But if even a few of the arms wind up on the black market instead of the battlefield, a Ukrainian lawmaker gloomily predicted, “we’re done.”
The lawmaker, Oleksandra Ustinova, a former anti-corruption activist who now monitors foreign arms transfers to Ukraine, does not believe there is widespread smuggling among the priciest and most sophisticated weapons donated by the United States over the last year.
“We’ve literally had people die because stuff was left behind, and they came back to get it and were killed,” she said of Ukrainian troops’ efforts to make sure weapons were not stolen or lost.
But in Washington, against a looming government debt crisis and growing scepticism about financial support for Ukraine, an increasingly sceptical Congress is demanding tight accountability for “every weapon, every round of ammunition that we send to Ukraine,” as Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said last month.
By law, US officials must monitor the use, transfer and security of US weapons and defence systems that are sold or otherwise given to foreign partners to make sure they are being deployed as intended. In December, for security reasons, the Biden administration largely shifted responsibility to Ukraine for monitoring the US weapons shipments at the front, despite Ukraine’s long history of corruption and arms smuggling.
Yet the sheer volume of arms delivered — including tens of thousands of shoulder-fired Javelin and Stinger missiles, portable launchers and rockets — creates a virtually insurmountable challenge to tracking each item, officials and experts caution.
All of which has heightened anxieties among Ukrainian officials responsible for ensuring weapons get to the battlefield.
“It’s impossible, honestly, to ask people to go through their stocks all the time,” said Ustinova, the chair of a committee in Ukraine’s parliament that monitors the transfer of weapons, in an interview in the streets of Warsaw, Poland, last month, as she rushed to catch a train to Kyiv, Ukraine.
At the beginning of the war, she said, “it was just about survival, and people were just passing around Javelins” to repel a column of Russian armour that bore down on Kyiv early in the attack. While those sorts of weapons are now routinely tracked, it’s still “very difficult” to account for small arms, like rifles, or the millions of artillery shells that the United States and its allies have sent.
The scrutiny is heightened for Javelins, Stingers and other kinds of missiles, as well as small-diameter bombs, certain types of drones, night-vision goggles and other systems being supplied to Ukraine.
But Ustinova said she has seen “zero evidence” of illicit arms transfers of the sort that would destroy Ukraine’s credibility and threaten at least a cutback in US support.
“Once there is smuggling or misuse of weapons, we’re done,” she said.
So far, American officials said, there have been only a handful of cases of suspected arms trafficking or other illicit military transfers of advanced weapons sent to foreign conflicts that must be most closely tracked.
Currently, federal investigators are looking into reports of Javelin shoulder-fired rockets and Switchblade drones being sold online after being taken from Ukraine, according to an American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive issue.
There was one confirmed report of a Swedish-made, anti-tank grenade launcher being smuggled out of Ukraine. But the theft was discovered only after the weapon exploded in the trunk of a car about 10 miles outside Moscow, injuring a retired Russian military officer who had just returned from eastern Ukraine.
The commander of Nato troops in Europe, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, told Congress late last month that he could recall only one case of attempted smuggling — some automatic rifles — since the war began. He said he remained “highly confident” in Ukraine’s ability to secure the nearly $37 billion in US weapons and other security assistance that has been committed so far. But the threat remains. In intense conflicts like the one in Ukraine, weapons are being used almost as quickly as they are received. That makes hand-held missile systems and other portable arms “vastly more difficult” to track, said Nikolai Sokov, a senior expert at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Austria.
Accounting for ammunition is “next to impossible,” Sokov said. He cited unconfirmed reports of Stinger missiles “roaming Ukraine free” and said officials appeared to be trying to persuade Ukrainian citizens to return light arms they received to defend themselves last year.
“This is what happens in every large-scale, lengthy conflict, and I do not see any reason to think it may be different with Ukraine,” Sokov said.
This past December, American officials began giving Ukrainian troops hand-held bar code scanners to instantly transmit the serial numbers of advanced weapons into a US database. The new process was part of the decision by the Biden administration to give Ukraine more authority to self-report how it is securing arms.
American military officials said the shift was necessary, given that fighting has largely prevented US inspectors from visiting battlefield units. But American officials responsible for the oversight remain concerned they cannot personally confirm the weapons’ whereabouts.
At least some Ukrainian front-line units under constant Russian fire are still waiting to receive hand-held scanners, Ustinova said. Such battlefield assessments have been infrequent in other war zones, American officials said, as smuggling generally becomes a concern when entire containers of sensitive missiles or rocket systems go missing — not individual light weapons.
Ustinova said Ukrainian officials and troops were all too aware of the stiff criminal penalties not just for smuggling US weapons but also failing to report any losses — arms destroyed or captured on the battlefield. Each lost weapon system is investigated and its serial number reported to the US Embassy in Kyiv, she said, “so in case it shows up, in Iran or somewhere, we’re not being accused of that.”
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