US weapons shipments for Ukraine disappearing into 'black hole': CNN

The US government is struggling to track large quantities of “lethal aid” shipped to Ukraine in recent months amid raging conflict in the country, according to a stunning new revelation.

Top security officials were quoted as saying by CNN on Tuesday that the US intelligence agencies had “almost zero” ability to follow the consignments to their final destination, referring to it as "the largest recent supply to a partner country in a conflict."

"We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero," it quoted a military source as saying. "It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time."

The Biden administration is concerned that the aid “may wind up in the hands of other militaries and militias that the US did not intend to arm,” a senior military official told CNN.

Western countries, including the US, have in recent weeks dispatched many different types of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, worth millions of dollars, which has provoked Russia to up the ante.

The first shipments of the latest round of US military assistance to the former Soviet republic, which includes heavier weapons systems, started arriving in the region over the weekend, reports said.

The recently approved $800 million in military aid to Ukraine includes Howitzer artillery systems, 40,000 artillery rounds, armored personnel vehicles, and other weapons.

It brings the total of military shipments to Ukraine since the start of the war in late February to $2.6bn.

"The artillery is a specific item the Ukrainians asked for because of the specific fighting they expect is going to occur in the Donbas," Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby said in a press briefing on Monday.

"And we know the Russians also believe the same thing because we see them moving artillery units into the Donbas as well."

ME