Lawmakers question timeline for Abrams tanks to reach Ukraine
Mike Brest
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Lawmakers directed skepticism at the top commander of U.S. forces in Europe over the American military’s timeline for getting Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who is also NATO’s top military commander, testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday on the posture of U.S. European Command a day after he appeared before the House Armed Services Committee.
UKRAINE HAS ALMOST ALL PROMISED MILITARY VEHICLES, NATO SAYS
Cavoli said that Western countries gave Ukraine 514 tanks, though none of them have come from the United States, which has agreed to provide 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks — the size of a Ukrainian tank battalion. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters last week that the training tanks would arrive in Grafenwoehr, Germany, “in the next few weeks,” though those are not combat-ready and will not be provided to Ukraine.
Following the training, Cavoli told senators they were “trying to accelerate as much as we can,” though he later noted his command had not ordered the second set of tanks to be sent to Ukraine yet. In his role for NATO, he said he delivered a new set of “operational plans” two weeks ago that are “very specific regional plans for collective defense,” including, for the first time in 35 years, a force structure requirement.
Noting the lack of an order to deliver the next set of tanks, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said: “Our country has thousands of main battle tanks. It would seem like it’s not that hard to find 31 and get them there. … I think the main reason for that is the main reason why we didn’t even agree to supply the tanks for a year, which is that President Biden didn’t want to supply them, and again, I think we could supply them faster than eight or nine months.”
He also accused the administration of trying to “drag our feet in what we’re supplying to Ukraine.”
“It’s just a repeated story we’ve seen over and over again over the course of this war,” the Arkansas senator said.
The U.S. announced it would provide Ukraine with 31 M1A2 tanks in January, though the administration later decided to give the M1A1, an older version, because it would accelerate the timeline for the arrival of the tanks on the battlefield.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) followed up on Cotton’s line of questioning, arguing that “the bottom line is, if we needed those tanks, it shouldn’t take eight months for the United States Army to be able to access 31 Abrams tanks. If we needed them tomorrow, we’d get them very, very quickly.”
He added, “You could get them. This is not a case of us not being able to get them. It’s a matter that somebody’s got to make a decision on when they want those tanks delivered.”
Cavoli affirmed a subsequent comment from Rounds in which the South Dakota senator said the commander would have the tanks within days if they were for the U.S. Army, to which the senator responded: “This, I think, is important to understand, that those decisions need to be made, and this is not within your area of operation. You’re ready to go. You can get it done. But someone’s got to tell you it’s time to go.”
The U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than $35 billion in military assistance since Russia invaded in February 2022, and the Biden administration has maintained that it will help Ukraine for as long as it’s needed. Nonetheless, there are some underlying questions about that support if Ukraine’s highly anticipated counteroffensive falters.
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Classified documents believed to be leaked by a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, who is now facing multiple charges under the Espionage Act after allegedly removing the classified documents from a secured work environment, taking them home, and then posting the information or photos of the documents online, revealed that the U.S. is not necessarily expecting the offensive to have overwhelming success.
Prosecutors accused Teixeira of being a flight risk in a Wednesday night court filing ahead of his detention hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon.