The United States will hand over obsolete Abrams tanks to Ukraine by autumn. This was announced on March 21 by Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder.
“The US Department of Defense, in close cooperation with Ukraine, has decided to provide a variant of the Abrams M1A1 tank, which will significantly speed up the delivery time and deliver this important equipment to Ukraine by this fall,” he told reporters.
Earlier in the day, John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator at the White House National Security Council, noted that the US Department of Defense may announce measures for the possible delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine earlier than expected.
On February 23, U.S. Army Ground Forces Commander Christine Wormuth noted that it could take more than a year to deliver U.S. M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. She emphasized that the US is not only supplying Abrams tanks, but also support equipment such as recovery vehicles, ammunition and a training package.
Prior to that, on January 25, US President Joe Biden announced the delivery of 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. He also stated that the aid would be accompanied by supplies from other countries.
Later it turned out that four Republican congressmen in a letter to Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanded clarification about the supply of 31 Abrams tanks for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They denounced subsidies to Ukraine, while the US has many internal security problems that are ignored by the authorities.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned the supply of arms to Ukraine. So, on January 16, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a new round of supplies to Ukraine of more advanced military equipment could “only drag out the whole story.”
The West stepped up military and financial support for Ukraine against the backdrop of Russia’s special operation to protect Donbass, which the Russian authorities announced on February 24, 2022 amid the aggravation of the situation in the region due to Ukrainian shelling.
