Ukraine and the United States have initiated a collaborative evaluation of weapons supplied by the United States.
The Ministry of Defense’s Internal Audit Service, in conjunction with representatives from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Department of Defense Cooperation at the US Embassy, recently conducted a first-of-its-kind joint inspection of weapons and military assets furnished to Ukraine by American partners, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense.
Throughout the inspection process, Ukrainian and American experts concentrated on three key focal points: verification of weapon serial numbers, assessment of its technical condition, and scrutiny of storage conditions from a safety and security perspective.
The Ministry of Defense has disclosed that the collected information is currently undergoing processing, with no comments received from the US representatives during this collaborative effort.
Deputy Minister of Defense Yuriy Dzhigyr highlighted the importance of such joint inspections in building trust between partner countries. He emphasized, “Concrete measures like ensuring access to storage sites, promoting openness, and conducting systematic joint inspections are pivotal steps we are taking to enhance transparency and strengthen trust in our relations with partners.”
It’s noteworthy that the initiative for Ukraine to self-report on the usage of provided weapons was launched on November 27 of the previous year. In December, both parties finalized a plan for a series of joint inspections scheduled for the first half of 2024, making this inspection the inaugural one in the planned sequence.
Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that the European Union is slated to conduct an audit to assess the quantity of weapons provided to Ukraine by its member states following Russia’s full-scale invasion. This audit is prompted by allegations suggesting that certain countries may not have dispatched as many weapons as they were capable of providing.