US tanks will take ‘many months’ to reach Ukraine, White House says
Mike Brest
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The tanks the United States will be providing to Ukraine will not arrive for “many months,” according to a Biden administration official.
President Joe Biden announced earlier this week that the U.S. would provide Ukraine with 31 M1A2 Abrams tanks, which is the equivalent of one Ukrainian tank battalion, though National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said on CNN on Friday morning that they “will take many months before they can get on the ground.”
He declined to specify whether the tanks would reach Ukraine before the end of the 2023 calendar year, but he said the U.S. is “not going to waste time” in training Ukrainians on the system and ensuring their supply chains are prepared to handle the rigorous upkeep.
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The U.S. is providing the tanks through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, which means it is paying for the tanks to be built and they are not coming from the U.S. military’s current stockpiles. They are doing this because the U.S. doesn’t have extra tanks in its inventory to give to Ukraine, deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday.
“We are using the USAI because that’s exactly it,” she explained. “We just don’t have these tanks available in excess in our U.S. stocks, which is why it is going to take months to transfer these M1A2 Abrams to Ukraine. And I think that you have to remember, I mean, as you probably know, these tanks are going to require training, maintenance, and sustainment that is going to take a very long time to also train the Ukrainians on. And so because of that — and we took that into account — that’s why we are using the USAI capability in order to procure these tanks for the Ukrainians.”
Biden’s decision to provide tanks, which he announced on Wednesday, ended a Western stalemate of sorts. Germany had been reluctant to give Ukraine its Leopard tanks and had been holding up other European countries that have the German-made tanks, while officials reportedly told U.S. lawmakers that they wouldn’t change their stance unless Biden agreed to provide Ukraine with the Abrams tanks.
“I don’t want to get too specific” about when the Abrams will arrive, Kirby added, “because we’re still working the plans out, but it’ll be many months,” though he added the Leopards from Germany will arrive in Ukraine “in short order.”
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Russian officials, as expected, expressed outrage at the West’s decision to provide Ukraine with tanks, accusing them of escalating the war. They then acted on it, firing 70 missiles at Ukraine on Thursday, 47 of which were intercepted, and also carried out 44 airstrikes, including 18 using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones, according to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At least 11 people were killed while another 11 were injured in the attacks, the country’s State Emergency Services said.
While Ukraine is preparing for a counteroffensive to retake its own territory, there is fear that Russia could also conduct offensive operations in the coming months. Ukrainian officials have already asked for fighter jets and long-range missiles, though the U.S. is not prepared to provide either currently.