MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/. Ukraine may receive the first tanks from Spain, Canada, Poland and France under the international accords reached in January already in the coming weeks while Germany will be able to deliver Leopard 2 tanks from its stockpiles to Kiev no sooner than the end of March. In the meantime, the United States will first have to manufacture Abrams tanks and the Ukrainian military will get them no sooner than the end of 2023 or already in 2024, according to foreign media reports.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on January 25 that he had made a decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and permit their re-export from NATO member states. US President Joe Biden also made a decision to hand over Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
TASS has put together major information on when Ukraine can get advanced Western tanks.
Decision on tank deliveries
The US administration and the authorities in Germany and other EU countries had been debating in the past few weeks over the delivery of tanks to Ukraine. As the newspaper Politico reported, Washington tried to put pressure on the Europeans at the talks on this issue as it believed that Kiev was receiving sufficient US military aid and thus expected Germany to make its decision. However, the United States realized that Germany would not decide on armor deliveries unless Washington sent Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
As a result, Washington and Berlin agreed that the United States would hand over Abrams tanks while Germany would send a small number of Leopard 2 tanks and allow other countries to re-export German armored combat vehicles to Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal specified.
Germany announced on January 25 that it would transfer 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the United States pledged to send 31 Abrams tanks to the Kiev regime. Span, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Finland also intend to deliver Leopard tanks to Ukraine. Poland will hand over 14 German tanks and 60 PT-91 Twardy tanks to Kiev.
Abrams tank manufacture in US
Washington has decided to transfer tanks to Kiev under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which authorizes the Department of Defense to conclude contracts with manufacturers as the Pentagon has an insufficient amount of this armor in its stockpiles. The United States has decided to purchase these tanks now so that the Ukrainians can have the time to learn how to operate them while this armor is being manufactured. It will take many months for Abrams tanks to arrive in Ukraine, the newspaper Politico reported, citing an unnamed high-placed US official.
This information was later confirmed by the Pentagon: the US arsenal currently lacks additional Abrams M1A2 tanks for their shipment to Ukraine. They will have to be purchased from their manufacturers, which will take several months. The White House specified that "it’s going to take many months before the tanks get there." Besides, the United States will need some time to organize a fuel supply chain for Abrams tanks. However, the Pentagon "will very soon" start doing the training for Ukrainian tank crews, it said.
However, the United States intends to send tanks to Ukraine in their M1A2 modification without secret armor elements that include depleted uranium. Abrams tanks are assembled in the US only at the General Dynamics-operated plant in Ohio and the facility can produce only 12 armored vehicles a month. The production line is now full of new tank orders for Poland and Taiwan, which have purchased 250 and 108 armored vehicles, correspondingly. Owing to this, tanks won’t arrive for the Ukrainian army "for many months, or potentially years," Politico presumed.
As The Washington Post reported, it will be possible to organize the delivery of tanks no sooner than the end of the year due to logistical difficulties.
Soonest tank deliveries
In the next few weeks, Poland will be able to transfer Leopard tanks to Ukraine. This will happen as soon as the Ukrainians are trained on them. Canada will also hand over Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine soon. Spain intends to send them by spring.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that the tanks could be delivered in three or four months but later specified that this could happen "before the end of March."
Portugal’s Foreign Minister Joao Gomes Cravinho presumed that Leopard tanks could be put into operation on Ukrainian soil in two or three months. He said that the timeframe depended on the training of Ukrainian military personnel, which could take several weeks.
Other tanks
Great Britain intends to deliver 14 Challenger 2 tanks and France is set to supply AMX-10 RC wheeled tanks to Ukraine.
Great Britain, however, gives various timeframes for the delivery of its armor. Thus, Minister of State in the UK Ministry of Defense Alex Chalk said that Challenger 2 tanks would arrive in Ukraine in late March. However, UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace later announced that the tanks would be handed over in summer or in May, probably, closer to April 9 (Protestants and Catholics will celebrate Easter on that day). He said it was hardly possible to talk about the exact timeframe for security reasons. The Ukrainian military personnel’s training in how to operate the tanks and provide for their upkeep began in Great Britain on January 30.
Meanwhile, France hopes that the first wheeled tanks will arrive in Ukraine already in February. However, Paris does not disclose the exact data on the amount of these armored vehicles and the timeframe of their delivery. Also, France has not yet decided on Kiev’s request to provide Leclerc tanks, the French Foreign Ministry said.