Ukraine will have to wait a long time for their Abrams tanks

Ukraine may have to wait until next year or even later to receive the first batch of American Abrams battle tanks, a senior Pentagon official has warned. While Germany is pushing ahead with its delivery of 14 Leopard 2A6s to Ukraine, the dispatch of the 31 promised Abrams tanks appears to be further down the line than had previously been predicted. Military analysts have said the Abrams with its superior firepower, armour and combat range would have a strategic impact on the battlefield. The expected long delay in their arrival will be seen as a blow to President Zelensky who plans a counter-offensive against the occupying Russian forces later this year. “We’re looking at what’s the fastest way we can get the tanks to the Ukrainians. It’s not going to be a matter of weeks,” Christine Wormuth, US Army secretary (the top army civilian), said. “None of the options that we’re exploring are weeks or two months. There are longer timelines involved but I think there are options that are less than two years, less than a year and a half,” she said. Zelensky has said he hopes the war will be over by the end of the year which could mean the Abrams tanks arriving too late to make a difference. The challenge for the Pentagon is that it claims to have no excess tanks available from storage sites. The Abrams in store also tend to be refurbished older versions of the tank, the M1A1. Under current plans the tanks to be sent to Ukraine will be new Abrams M1A2s which will have to be built by General Dynamics but they will not be fitted with the classified depleted uranium armour plating put on the tanks solely for US Army use. Wormuth hinted for the first time that it was possible the 31 Abrams offered to Kyiv might not necessarily be new ones after all. There was a variety of different ways to produce the tanks, she said, building them “from scratch” as the US is doing currently for Poland, to drawing from the US inventory. She explained the delay by saying there were a lot of details still to be worked out, including all the support vehicles needed to repair, recover and refuel the Abrams, as well as ammunition and training. Poland’s purchase of 250 M1A2 Abrams is going to take until 2025 or 2026 for delivery and Warsaw is first in the queue on the General Dynamics production line. Wormuth said the army would present the options to Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, and the final decision would be made by President Biden.