Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s under secretary of Defense for policy, told the House Armed Services Committee there was no “evidence of diversion” of the billions of dollars in U.S. assistance supporting Ukraine against a Russian invasion.
“We think the Ukrainians are using properly what they’ve been given,” Kahl said.
Congress approved $113 billion in emergency assistance for Ukraine last year.
The $67 billion for defense-related spending has included an array of weapons, including Javelin missile launchers, Stinger missiles, 155 millimeter artillery shells and High Mobile Artillery Rocket Systems.
The Pentagon is able to track the equipment going to Kyiv through scanners provided to the Ukrainians and a software inventory database used by NATO, Kahl said.
There are also about a dozen officials at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine for certain on-site visits.
But the Pentagon’s lead watchdog, Inspector General Robert Storch, pointed to an October report from his agency that acknowledges challenges in oversight because of a small number of available U.S. personnel in Ukraine.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) slammed Storch after the U.S. watchdog official said they were continuing to look at the issue through a number of ongoing projects auditing federal agencies.
“You cannot testify that everything is complying with the law in end-use monitoring,” Gaetz said. “If you could testify to that, you would.”
