Inspector General Robert P. Storch announced today that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) released the report, “Evaluation of the DoD’s Accountability of Lost or Destroyed Defense Articles Provided to Ukraine Requiring Enhanced End-Use Monitoring.” The evaluation is the fourth in an ongoing series of reviews to assess the effectiveness with which the DoD is monitoring and accounting for enhanced end-use monitoring (EEUM) designated defense articles provided to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF).
“Safeguarding EEUM-designated defense articles is of critical importance,” said IG Storch. “Although the DoD and the UAF continue to improve reporting gaps in the EEUM process, additional improvements can be made to comply with the requirements for tracking and accountability of such equipment that is reported as lost or destroyed.”
The report highlights that as of November 26, 2023, a total $62.2 million in EEUM-designated items have been reported as lost or destroyed, according to the UAF’s reporting to the U.S. European Command’s (USEUCOM) Office of Defense Cooperation in Ukraine (ODC-U). The DoD OIG found that 99.4 percent of the EEUM-designated items reported as lost or destroyed during our initial period of review through July 31, 2023, were night vision devices (NVD). The ODC-Ukraine and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency took steps to improve inventory reporting, including by requiring quarterly reporting from the UAF during the latter half of 2023. The DoD OIG extended the period of review to November 26, 2023 to capture the impact of the additional reporting. The evaluation found that the additional reporting increased the value and diversity of the items reported by the UAF as lost or destroyed. This increased loss reporting included not only NVDs, but other items such as Javelin missiles and missile launch units. The ODC-U indicated that it cannot tell which of these items were lost and which were destroyed until it receives the circumstances of loss in the UAF loss reports. The DoD OIG found that the ODC-U did not consistently obtain timely or complete loss reports, with an average time from initial defense article loss to final loss report of 301 days, or approximately 10 times the applicable reporting requirement. The evaluation also found that USEUCOM personnel did not consistently review or analyze the information from loss notifications and loss reports for risk of adversary capture or potential end use violations. It was beyond the scope of the evaluation to determine if there has been diversion of U.S. security assistance.
The DoD OIG found that these issues occurred because reporting timelines and information requirements were inconsistent, the Security Assistance Management Manual did not provide sufficient guidance for partner nation self-reporting, and the timelines and requirements did not always provide adequate time for the UAF to investigate EEUM losses. The DOD OIG made six recommendations in this report, including recommendations to assist DoD to improve EEUM loss reporting by the UAF and to enhance reviews of EEUM loss reports. The DoD OIG is continuing our work in this area, with a number of ongoing evaluations assessing the DoD’s continued efforts to improve its accuracy, completeness, and compliance with applicable reporting requirements.