US Claims Fully Monitoring Ukraine-Bound Weapons ‘Impossible’ as Biden Plots Sending Troops to Do So
Ukrainian soldier armed with US Javelin ride along Khreshchatyk Street, during a military parade to celebrate Independence Day in Kiev, Ukraine. File photo
With US officials continuing to complain about being unable to track US arms dumped into Ukraine, one US official reportedly described a Biden administration push to put US troops on the ground as “classic mission creep.”The US military is reportedly considering deploying US troops to Ukraine in what’s being portrayed as an effort to monitor the billions in weapons currently being shipped to anti-Russian militants there.Citing anonymous US officials, a major corporate media outlet describes the potential deployment as an effort to forestall “pressure for accountability from House Republicans,” who’ve promised an end to the Biden administration’s “blank check” to the Zelensky regime.The Pentagon reportedly already has dozens of US troops in Ukraine, including what they say are “a very small number” which they claim are “already assigned to making sure weapons reach their intended recipients.” But anonymous US officials claim those soldiers have been able to investigate the weapons at just two locations outside of Kiev.The report was published just two days before another major Western publication released brief excerpts of a recent US State Department cable which warned “active combat between Ukrainian and Russian forces create an environment in which standard verification measures are sometimes impracticable or impossible.”
Opinion & Analysis’One Thing Only’: For US, Ukraine Conflict is Exclusively About Money, Analyst Says10 December, 09:16 GMTUS officials have previously insisted that effectively monitoring the vast quantities of US-manufactured weaponry being dumped into Ukraine is simply beyond their abilities.“End-use monitoring is really complex right now,” claimed a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.“We couldn’t do it now,” House Armed Services Committee member Sara Jacobs (D-CA) reportedly stated. “We don’t have enough mobility within the country to really be able to do it.”Though she claimed there “hasn’t been misuse of weapons” so far, and that reports claiming otherwise were simply a product of “Russians trying to sow doubt in our assistance to Ukraine,” Jacobs acknowledged it’s “a valid concern… that we are spending taxpayer dollars and we are giving weapons to a place that prior to this conflict had been one of the [main] proliferators of small arms in Europe.”But one US official reportedly warned that any troop deployment would only further entangle the US in its ongoing proxy war with Russian Federation forces.“This is classic mission creep,” a major Western outlet quoted a US official as saying.
Opinion & AnalysisUS Military Expert on Why Patriot Systems Won’t Be Game-Changer in UkraineYesterday, 18:24 GMTAlongside a potential troop deployment, the US is reportedly considering alternative methods for monitoring its arms shipments, including a public-private partnership to create “a commercial smartphone app that uploads all photo and video media onto a blockchain at the point of capture.”Another scheme apparently involves simply relying on the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian military to “conduct its own inspections” of military equipment.The cable reportedly indicates that in February, the US is planning to establish a program called “Monitoring, Evaluation and Audit Services for Ukraine Reporting,” or MEASURE. The supposed initiative to track billions in military hardware reportedly includes a three-year contract “with a US firm to establish an in-country presence to undertake remote and in-person monitoring with site visits as possible.”
