US is finalizing plans to send Abrams tanks to Ukraine

The US is finalizing plans to send approximately 30 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, CNN two US officials familiar with the deliberations.

The Biden administration’s announcement to ship the US-made tanks could come later this week, the news agency reported. CNN on Tuesday (24).

The timing around the actual delivery of the tanks is still unclear and it typically takes several months to train troops to use the tanks effectively, officials said.

The US will also send a small number of recovery vehicles – tracked vehicles used to assist with repairing tanks on the battlefield or removing them from the battlefield for service and maintenance at a different location, one of the officials said.

The pending announcement appears to break a diplomatic deadlock with Germany over supplying tanks to Ukraine.

German officials openly stated that they would only send their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine if the US sent the M-1 Abrams tank, a system that US officials repeatedly asserted was overly complex and difficult to maintain.

The US decision to supply Ukraine with Abrams tanks is an abrupt about-turn from its stated position, which allows Germany to send its tanks and paves the way for approval by other European countries to send more German-made Leopard tanks as well.

The government’s top national security officials actively considered what steps they could take to convince Germany to send the Leopards.

At a meeting of Western defense leaders in Germany on Friday, the US and its allies failed to convince German officials to send them in as part of Berlin’s next round of military assistance to Ukraine.

But on Tuesday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “We are preparing our decision, which will come very soon” on the tanks.

Later, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had decided to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine after “months of debate”.

THE CNN contacted the German government for comment.

The Biden administration never fully took American tanks off the table, but officials said publicly last week that the time was not right to send the 70-ton M1 Abrams because they are expensive and require a significant amount of training to operate.

Tanks, instead, were repeatedly touted as a long-term option – even as critics said the timing was right as Ukraine braces for the possibility that Russia will deploy more troops and launch a new offensive.

The decision to send tanks will depend on an “iterative process” that assesses Ukraine’s needs, what aid is appropriate for the US to send, and technical considerations surrounding operating and maintaining the tanks, the National Security Council’s coordinator for Strategic Communications said. , John Kirby.

“We talked about the fact that Abrams is an incredibly capable system, but it’s a very expensive system to operate and maintain,” Kirby told Anderson Cooper of CNN .

“It has a jet engine – that doesn’t mean Ukrainians can’t learn it, it just means we have to factor in all of these things in any system that we’re potentially going to provide them with,” he added.

Kirby acknowledged that the complexity of Abrams systems could play a role in the US decision to share tanks with Ukraine, adding that “with any advanced system, you have to factor in things like supply chain and uptime.”

Sky News Arabia was the first to report the news that the US was considering sending the tanks.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently urged Western allies for modern tanks as his country prepares for an expected major Russian counter-offensive in the spring.

The UK has already announced it will send 12 of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, crossing what once appeared to be a red line for the US and its European allies.

A US announcement that it is sending tanks would increase pressure on Germany, which decides whether or not to authorize the transfer of Leopards.

Any announcement would be a long-term contribution from Abrams, which means the Ukrainians won’t be fielding them anytime soon because of training and establishing the support structure, he told the CNN a former defense official with knowledge of the deliberations.

For now, the pending US announcement is more about making Germany more comfortable supplying its own tanks.

“It won’t be tanks that will be on the ground next week or next month,” said the former employee.

Given last week’s announcement of a $2.5 billion reduction in US stock to send to Ukraine, an announcement is unlikely to be another reduction.

Instead, the supply of tanks to Ukraine could come from a new contract under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) or an overhaul of M-1 Abrams tanks from another country like Poland, which recently struck a deal. to buy more and has been vocal in its insistence on sending tanks to Ukraine.

Either scenario gives the US more time and space to acquire, train and equip Ukraine with tanks that are complex to operate.

Ukrainian forces are already training in several new and advanced systems.

That list includes training on Patriot missiles, UK-built Challenger 2 tanks, M109 howitzers and more, as well as the combined arms training that recently began in Germany.

The tanks represent the most powerful direct offensive weapon delivered to Ukraine so far, a heavily armed system designed to engage the enemy head-on rather than fire from a distance.

If used properly with the necessary training, they could allow Ukraine to retake territory against Russian forces who have had time to dig in defensive lines.

The US began supplying refurbished Soviet-era T-72 tanks, but modern Western tanks are a generation ahead in terms of their ability to hit enemy positions.

Pentagon and White House officials denied that the risk of an escalation with Russia had anything to do with the US decision to delay a decision to send the tanks.

Instead, the concern has been how difficult it would be for Ukrainian forces to operate and maintain the Abrams tank and whether it would be effective on the battlefield in Ukraine.

“It’s a very, very different system than the generation of tanks that are operating today,” retired Army Major General Patrick Donahoe, former commander of the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga. CNN last week.

“So we would have to go through a considerable training program with their Army.

It wouldn’t be something where you can just go, ‘Hey, we put Abrams on you today and you’ll fight him tomorrow.’ This is not even in the realm of the possible.