Rocket launchers, precision-guided missiles and billions of {dollars}’ price of different superior American weapons have given Ukraine a preventing likelihood in opposition to Russia forward of a counteroffensive. But if even just a few of the arms wind up on the black market as an alternative of the battlefield, a Ukrainian lawmaker gloomily predicted, “we’re done.”

The lawmaker, Oleksandra Ustinova, a former anti-corruption activist who now screens overseas arms transfers to Ukraine, doesn’t imagine there may be widespread smuggling among the many priciest and most subtle weapons donated by the United States during the last yr.

“We’ve literally had people die because stuff was left behind, and they came back to get it, and were killed,” she stated of Ukrainian troops’ efforts to ensure weapons weren’t stolen or misplaced.

But in Washington, in opposition to a looming government debt crisis and growing skepticism about monetary help for Ukraine, an more and more skeptical Congress is demanding tight accountability for “every weapon, every round of ammunition that we send to Ukraine,” as Representative Rob Wittman, Republican of Virginia, stated final month.

By law, U.S. officers should monitor the use, switch and safety of American weapons and protection methods which might be bought or in any other case given to overseas companions to ensure they’re being deployed as supposed. In December, for safety causes, the Biden administration largely shifted duty to Kyiv for monitoring the American weapons shipments on the entrance, regardless of Ukraine’s long history of corruption and arms smuggling.

Yet the sheer quantity of arms delivered — together with tens of 1000’s of shoulder-fired Javelin and Stinger missiles, moveable launchers and rockets — creates a nearly insurmountable problem to monitoring every merchandise, officers and specialists warning.

All of which has heightened anxieties amongst Ukrainian officers answerable for making certain weapons get to the battlefield.

“It’s impossible, honestly, to ask people to go through their stocks all the time,” stated Ms. Ustinova, the chairwoman of a committee in Ukraine’s Parliament that screens the switch of weapons, in an interview within the streets of Warsaw final month, as she rushed to catch a practice to Kyiv.

At the start of the battle, she stated, “it was just about survival, and people were just passing around Javelins” to repel a column of Russian armor that bore down on Kyiv early within the invasion. While these types of weapons are actually routinely tracked, it’s nonetheless “very difficult” to account for small arms, like rifles, or the thousands and thousands of artillery shells that the United States and its allies have despatched.

The scrutiny is heightened for Javelins, Stingers and other forms of missiles, in addition to small-diameter bombs, sure forms of drones, night-vision goggles and different methods being supplied to Ukraine.

But Ms. Ustinova says she has seen “zero evidence” of illicit arms transfers of the kind that might destroy Ukraine’s credibility and threaten a minimum of a cutback in U.S. help.

“Once there is smuggling or misuse of weapons, we’re done,” she stated.

So far, American officers stated, there have been solely a handful of cases of suspected arms trafficking or different illicit navy transfers of superior weapons despatched to overseas conflicts that have to be most intently tracked.

Currently, federal investigators are trying into stories of Javelin shoulder-fired rockets and Switchblade drones being bought on-line after being taken from Ukraine, in line with an American official, who spoke on situation of anonymity to debate a extremely delicate challenge.

There was one confirmed report of a Swedish-made, anti-tank grenade launcher being smuggled out of Ukraine. But the theft was found solely after the weapon exploded within the trunk of a automobile about 10 miles exterior Moscow, injuring a retired Russian navy officer who had simply returned from jap Ukraine.

Inspectors on the Pentagon, State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development reported in March that that they had “not yet substantiated significant waste, fraud or abuse” of American help that has been despatched to Ukraine out of 189 complaints they acquired alleging misconduct.

A uncommon go to by American inspectors to a Ukrainian navy facility in Odesa on April 26 discovered “no irregularities,” stated Capt. William Speaks, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Europe.

The commander of NATO troops in Europe, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, informed Congress late final month that he may recall just one case of tried smuggling — some automated rifles — because the battle started. He stated he remained “highly confident” in Ukraine’s capacity to safe the practically $37 billion in U.S. weapons and other security assistance that has been dedicated up to now.

But the menace stays. In intense conflicts just like the one in Ukraine, weapons are getting used virtually as rapidly as they’re acquired. That makes hand-held missile methods and different moveable arms “vastly more difficult” to trace, stated Nikolai Sokov, a senior skilled on the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Austria.

Accounting for ammunition is “next to impossible,” Mr. Sokov stated. He cited unconfirmed stories of Stinger missiles “roaming Ukraine free,” and stated officers seemed to be making an attempt to steer Ukrainian residents to return mild arms they acquired to defend themselves final yr.

“This is what happens in every large-scale, lengthy conflict, and I do not see any reason to think it may be different with Ukraine,” Mr. Sokov stated.

In interviews and congressional testimony, greater than a half-dozen American and Ukrainian officers described an assiduous however fallible course of to trace U.S.-delivered weapons.

Before they cross into Ukraine, arms shipments cease at navy staging facilities in Europe, the place the weapons’ serial numbers are recorded into a number of databases which might be seen by American and Ukrainian officers. The serial numbers are rechecked alongside the supply route into Ukraine to ensure none are lacking. They are additionally used to determine weapons which have been misplaced and later reclaimed; arms that turn up far from Ukraine would point out they had been smuggled.

Ukrainian officers “track it as it goes forward,” General Cavoli informed Mr. Wittman within the House listening to. “We watch over their shoulder.”

This previous December, American officers started giving Ukrainian troops hand-held bar code scanners to immediately transmit the serial numbers of superior weapons into an American database. The new course of was a part of the choice by the Biden administration to provide Ukraine extra authority to self-report how it’s securing arms.

American navy officers stated the shift was mandatory, given that preventing has largely prevented U.S. inspectors from visiting battlefield models. But American officers answerable for the oversight stay involved they can not personally affirm the weapons’ whereabouts.

At least some Ukrainian frontline models beneath fixed Russian fireplace are nonetheless ready to obtain hand-held scanners, Ms. Ustinova stated. Such battlefield assessments have been rare in different battle zones, American officers stated, as smuggling usually turns into a priority when whole containers of delicate missiles or rocket methods go lacking — not particular person mild weapons.

Ms. Ustinova stated Ukrainian officers and troops had been all too conscious of the stiff prison penalties not only for smuggling American weapons but additionally failing to report any losses — arms destroyed or captured on the battlefield. Each misplaced weapon system is investigated and its serial quantity reported to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, she stated, “so in case it shows up, in Iran or somewhere, we’re not being accused of that.”

She stated the 16-person committee she chairs has doggedly investigated news reports of Western arms meant for Ukraine which have supposedly turned up with gangs, terror teams and different criminals. But Ms. Ustinova stated she has discovered no proof these stories are true, and echoed American assertions attributing them to Russian disinformation campaigns to sow doubt about NATO help for the battle.

Yet the scrutiny is carrying on Ukrainian officers, who’re balancing their dire want for weapons in opposition to onerous expectations for monitoring them.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine revealed “a twinge of frustration” and an air of “How many times do I have to tell you?” when the problem was raised final month by a U.S. delegation to Kyiv, stated Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who was on the journey.

But Mr. Zelensky agreed it’s mandatory, she stated, to make sure the continued provision of American weapons and different safety help.

“All it will take is a situation where we find that somebody, somewhere down the chain, has gotten a piece of military equipment and has sold it for personal enrichment, or misappropriated it in some way,” Ms. Murkowski stated. “Because then it just gets that much harder.”

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.