US sending weapons package to Ukraine without clear ability to track it

PITT COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) - The United States is sending an $800 million military weapons and aid package to Ukraine.

The move comes after the Biden administration said they can’t be totally sure what will happen once it gets to Ukraine.

One of the biggest reasons the US can’t track the package is the lack of boots on the ground in Ukraine.

One expert explained how delicate the process of tracking the weapons can be because too much intervention could lead to a global-scale war.

“There is very little accountability in terms of where the weapons end up,” Armin Krishnan, ECU security studies professor said.

Besir Ceka, Davidson College political studies professor, said one of the biggest risks involved with sending weapons to other countries in need is what could happen when the fighting stops.

“Once this war hopefully is over, some of these weapons could end up in the black market and could be purchased by groups that are unfriendly to the US,” Ceka said.

Biden and his administration are willing to take the risk. Ceka agrees with the move.

“This kind of naked aggression by Russia is something we haven’t really seen since the end of the second world war, where a country occupies and wants to annex an entire independent country,” Ceka said.

While having a military presence in Ukraine would help make sure the weapons get where they need to go, Krishnan says we can’t do that.

“There is no option for the US military to intervene in that conflict because that would be World War Three,” Krishnan said.

Krishnan says there could be another way to keep an eye on the package.

“Tracking devices or devices that disable those weapons after a certain amount of time... that is a possibility that I see,” Krishnan said.

Some people feel this move could cause Russia to retaliate against the US and NATO, but Ceka doesn’t think it will get to that point.

“Very risky thing for them to do, given the shambolic nature of their army and the massive disappointment it has been so far. Starting a war with NATO I don’t think is in the interest of Russia,” Ceka said.

Krishnan said one of the biggest risks with sending weapons to Ukraine is depleting our own weapons depots.

He added that a lot of those weapons get destroyed by the Russians before they get used.

One big motivation behind the US sending these weapons could be related to the Budapest Memorandum. The US, United Kingdom, and Russia signed it in the mid-1990s saying that, if Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, the other countries would help them.

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