U.S. races to track American arms in heat of Ukraine war

U.S. monitors have conducted in-person inspections for only about 10 percent of the 22,000 U.S.-provided weapons sent to Ukraine that require special oversight.

U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public previously, said they are racing to deploy new means for tracking weapons seen as having a heightened risk of diversion, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles and Javelin antitank missiles, amid what they describe as Ukraine’s “super hot conflict.”

They hope to achieve a “reasonable” level of compliance with U.S. oversight rules for those high-risk items, but also acknowledge that they are unlikely to achieve 100 percent of normal checks and inventories as the country’s escalating war with Russia strains systems for ensuring weapons are not stolen or misused.