Western weapons will not end up in enemy hands, as happened with Iraq, Afghanistan - Yermak
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian President's Office, wrote this in a column for Newsweek, Ukrinform reports, with reference to his Telegram channel.
"This will never happen in Ukraine, not least because Ukraine has already shown something found in neither of those countries [Iraq and Afghanistan] — a will to fight for ourselves. […] I can assure the American people and their elected representatives that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and his administration view the weapons' effective deployment as not only a top priority but a sacred duty we have before the Ukrainian people. That is why Zelensky has implemented layers of control and accountability to ensure oversight of the assistance provided to Ukraine," Yermak said.
According to him, on a government-to-government basis, Zelensky and his team of advisors meet regularly with representatives from the countries providing this assistance to report on where and how this assistance is being used.
Yermak thanked Ukrainian MPs for supporting an initiative led by the presidential office to create a special commission to monitor and control all foreign assistance provided to Ukraine, which includes representatives from every parliamentary faction.
In addition, delegates from the Verkhovna Rada hold almost weekly virtual meetings with their counterparts from Europe to ensure the legislative bodies have the necessary information to fulfill their oversight roles.
Yermak added that the government is also organizing briefings for relevant U.S. congressional committees on security assistance oversight. The Ukrainian authorities are cooperating closely with the newly arrived U.S. defense attaché Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon. He will have unprecedented levels of access and support from the Zelensky administration.
"Ukraine must and shall prevail as history teaches us ideologically driven aggressors like Russia and Nazi Germany do not stop in Crimea or the Sudetenland. They go on to Kyiv and Paris until they are beaten back," Yermak added.
