Maintaining Transparency in US Security Assistance to Ukraine

From February 24th, 2022 to September 27th of this year, the United States has provided $61.3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s war. This figure leaves out the non-military aid to Ukraine from the US, and it excludes the tens of billions of aid provided to the country since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014. This is a staggering amount of assistance to a country that the United States did not have a close military relationship with before Russia’s annexation of Crimea. While the sheer amount of aid has caused political disputes in Washington, it has been a relatively successful program so far. The ongoing conflict remains confined to Russia and Ukraine, avoiding greater escalation, regional conflagration, or great power war. There is also little evidence that US-supplied munitions have been used in war crimes by Ukrainian forces, apart from one unit of foreign volunteers mentioned in the New York Times. Lastly, there has not been any evidence of weapons going to Ukraine being diverted elsewhere as a result of criminal activity, although this problem could emerge if and when combat ceases. Other US arms shipments have gone to countries where this has proved a systemic problem. 

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