Accounting error means US has more money to send arms to Ukraine | Fact check

Nate Trela, USA TODAY
·3 min read
6

The claim: US accidentally sent Ukraine an extra $6.2 billion

A June 20 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) condemns a recent announcement from the Defense Department.

“Pentagon said we ACCIDENTALLY SENT $6.2 BILLION DOLLARS to UKRAINE,” reads the post. “Accounting error. This is straight up money laundering. Every American should be pissed off! Someone should go to prison for this!"

The post was shared more than 5,000 times in a week.

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Our rating: False

The U.S. did not mistakenly send extra money to Ukraine. The Defense Department said it overvalued military equipment shipped there from existing stockpiles. The error means the U.S. can supply more equipment than previously thought, not that it overspent.

Military equipment worth less than reported

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh acknowledged the mistake in a June 20 press briefing, saying equipment taken from existing stockpiles was valued at the cost to replace it instead of the book value, which is a calculation that accounts for depreciation.

Singh said the value was wrong by $2.6 billion for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2022, and another $3.6 billion for the current fiscal year. That means the department can send more equipment to Ukraine before requesting more funding from Congress.

The State Department said June 14 that the U.S. had spent about $42 billion on security assistance for Ukraine since January 2021, and Pentagon announcements show about $22 billion came in the form of equipment that was already in U.S. stockpiles.

The discovery was made at a time when getting funding from Congress could prove more difficult, as USA TODAY reported. The U.S. has allocated more than $110 billion to support Ukraine's defense against the Russian invasion, but some lawmakers have suggested the U.S. should make reducing its own debt a priority in the next budget.

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Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said using book value is the correct way to account for the equipment. The U.S. has been drawing down existing stocks of vehicles and munitions, he said, and their value depreciates just like a car or clothing a person might later donate.

“If you donate something, you must deduct its current depreciated value, not its replacement value,” Cancian told USA TODAY in an email.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact and FactCheck.org also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, the US did not accidentally send Ukraine $6 billion | Fact check

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