Inspector General Robert P. Storch announced today that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) released the “Audit of DoD Maintenance of Military Equipment Provided in Support of Ukraine.” The audit aimed to determine the extent to which DoD performed maintenance support for U.S. military equipment provided to Ukraine, focusing on maintenance support performed at the Remote Maintenance and Distribution Cell–Ukraine (RDC-U).
The DoD OIG found that, although the DoD performed maintenance and repaired military equipment at the RDC-U to ensure the items were fully mission capable before providing the items to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), several issues impacted maintenance operations, including that DoD units did not provide the equipment to the RDC-U in accordance with Defense Security Cooperation Agency guidance. The DoD OIG also found that the UAF’s increased use of equipment provided under the Presidential Drawdown Authority resulted in a higher demand for repair parts, placing a strain on the supply chain. Additionally, the UAF did not always return parts that could be repaired or refurbished to the DoD, which could have mitigated stress on the supply chain.
“While it is encouraging that DoD has been able to perform maintenance on significant amounts of military equipment at the RDC-U, the operations are not without challenges,” said IG Storch. “These issues must be mitigated to help ensure equipment is fully mission capable for the UAF, to reduce risk to DoD readiness, and to ease the strain on the supply chain.”
The DoD OIG made two recommendations to the Security Assistance Group–Ukraine to:
- In coordination with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and the Military Services, establish processes and implement controls to mitigate the challenges regarding non-mission-capable military equipment arriving at the RDC-U for repair and maintenance.
- Explore establishing a memorandum of understanding with the UAF to incentivize its return on repair parts and implement the results of the review, as appropriate.
The DoD OIG will monitor progress toward the implementation of these recommendations.