Western weapons for Ukraine, or a journey not necessarily one-way

This message by Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko should be linked to a study published, January 10, 2024, by the defence Department's Inspector General revealing that the US **has lost number of the nearly 40,000 weapons units sent to Ukraine's front lines as of February 2022**. It noted that the advanced technology and tiny size of this equipment, including drones, Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft launchers and night imagination goggles worth more than $1 billion, among others, made it peculiarly attractive to smugglers and black marketplace traffickers. About 60 percent of the weapons were "backlogged," meaning they were not initially registered in the tracking database or added after shipment from U.S. warehouses.