Biden administration to provide Ukraine with 31 Abrams tanks
Mike Brest
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The Biden administration has agreed to provide Ukraine with more than 30 Abrams tanks, marking a reversal from a week ago when officials said such a move wouldn’t make sense due to the maintenance and training requirements.
President Joe Biden‘s team will give Ukraine 31 tanks, which is the equivalent of one Ukrainian tank battalion, a senior administration official told reporters, adding that the donation is being made through the Ukraine security assistance initiative. The USAI program is about the procurement of weapons, so the delivery of the Abrams tanks is expected to take many months before they reach Ukrainian territory. The package, which is valued at $400 million, will also include the procurement of eight M88 Recovery Vehicles, support vehicles and equipment, and funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment.
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Ukrainian leaders have pleaded for tanks from their Western allies for weeks as they prepare for an expected Russian offensive in the coming months, though Germany held up those efforts over the last week by declining to provide Leopard tanks, and it barred other European countries from providing German-made tanks as well. German officials reportedly told U.S. lawmakers that he would not send Leopards into the conflict unless Biden also sent Abrams tanks.
Germany has since reversed course and announced on Wednesday that it would provide a company of 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks.
“This is the result of intensive consultations that took place with Germany’s closest European and international partners. This decision follows our well-known line of supporting Ukraine to the Ukraine to the best of our ability,” German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said.
The Department of Defense said a consortium of European countries has committed to providing two battalions of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, which are expected to reach the battlefield “in the coming weeks,” according to a senior administration official.
Defense officials from roughly 50 countries met at Ramstein Air Base in Germany last week in the eighth meeting of the Defense Contact Group, and they left without coming to an agreement on the tanks debate, demonstrating what could have been the first cracks within the NATO alliance as it relates to its support for Ukraine.
U.S. defense officials said last week that providing the Abrams tanks did not make sense due to the difficulties of sustaining them.
“The Abrams are — it’s more of a sustainment issue. I mean, this is a tank that requires jet fuel, whereas the Leopard and the Challenger, it’s a different engine. They require diesel. It’s a little bit easier to maintain. They can maneuver across large portions of territory before they need to refuel. The maintenance and the high cost that it would take to maintain an Abrams,” deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters last Thursday. “It just doesn’t make sense to provide that to the Ukrainians at this moment.”
On the reversal, a senior administration official said the U.S. “will have the ability to put in place a very careful training program but also a very careful program to be able to maintain and sustain these tanks, which do require a good deal of assistance,” though the official did not say what changed the U.S.’s decision on providing the tanks.
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Russian officials have already criticized the West for providing tanks, accusing it of escalating the war, which just marked its 11th month on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, more weapons from NATO bring more suffering for people in Ukraine. It also brings more attention to the continent, but it cannot prevent Russia from reaching our goals,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, while Russian Ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechaev called Berlin’s decision to send tanks to Kyiv “highly dangerous” and said it “takes the conflict to a new level of confrontation.”
The United Kingdom announced it would supply 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Kyiv, Poland has sought Germany’s approval to send Leopard tanks, and other European countries could follow suit.