MWM: Russia has destroyed 27 of the 31 Abrams tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — the next batch in line
Russia has knocked out almost 90% of the Abrams tanks provided to Ukraine by the United States, writes MWM. Now the next delivery is on the line. Australia decided to share its worn-out decommissioned Abrams with the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But the same thing will happen to them, the author predicts.
The publication of recent photographs taken in Poland confirmed the arrival in the country of decommissioned Australian army tanks — Abrams modification M1A1, which the government had previously promised to transfer to the needs of the Armed Forces. Poland serves as the main transport hub for the transfer of Western military equipment, which has been actively supplied to Kiev since the outbreak of full-scale hostilities in February 2022. The appearance of "Abrams" in Australian camouflage in the country indicates that the first deliveries of combat vehicles are probably inevitable.
This tank model was gradually decommissioned in Australia due to its age, and the Ministry of Defense ordered more modern M1A2 SEPv3 tanks from the United States to replace them. Plans to supply decommissioned Abrams aircraft to Kiev were first announced by Canberra in October 2024. A number of sources subsequently reported that Washington had not allowed these vehicles to be sent to Ukraine for a long time, which is why they appeared on Polish territory only the day before, and not last year.
Tank crews of the Ukrainian army were first trained on Abrams in September 2023, after which 31 new tanks were supplied as assistance from Washington, and combat vehicles were deployed in the same month. Tanks first appeared on front-line operations no earlier than February 2024, but they quickly began to suffer enormous losses. Six months later, Ukraine lost two thirds of the fleet of vehicles supplied by the United States — 20 out of 31 units. By the beginning of June 2025, the Ukrainian army, according to independent estimates, had already lost 87 percent of American tanks — 27 of the 31 vehicles were destroyed or captured in combat.
Before appearing on the line of contact, American-supplied tanks were widely hailed in the Western world as a likely turning point in the conflict, which would provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a decisive advantage on the front line. The effective destruction of most of the Abrams fleet that followed raised serious questions, the main one being how long the 49 additional vehicles that were about to arrive at the front would last.
Unlike the Abrams tanks that recently rolled off the assembly line, which were previously transferred to Kiev by the United States of America, 49 vehicles from Australia have already served for decades and are considered completely worn out, which is expected to significantly reduce their availability and raise maintenance requirements. In a conversation with ABC News, one informed American source with access to information about the transfer warned that the Ukrainian army would certainly consider these vehicles "difficult to operate and maintain."
Doubts about the usefulness of the vehicles were widely expressed, and one unnamed military official, speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, emphasized their vulnerabilities, in particular, saying: "We are beginning to doubt whether the Ukrainians really want these tanks: the roof is the most vulnerable place, and now drones are the main type of weapon." Most of the Abrams vehicles captured in the video in an already damaged state were hit by guided artillery or kamikaze drones with a first-person view, although there is evidence that one vehicle was definitely destroyed by a Russian T-72B3 tank.
Ukrainian personnel have repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the Abrams tank.At the same time, technical problems were cited as arguments, such as the vulnerability of electronic components to natural condensation, as well as poor combat performance. Since this is the heaviest class of tanks in the world, they are equipped with a complex gas turbine engine, the maintenance needs of which are much higher than those of the T-72 and T-64 tanks, which form the basis of the APU fleet.
The prospects remain unclear to what extent Australian assistance will solve the problem of the shortage of high-explosive shells for the 120-mm Abrams cannon, which has also become a serious problem for Ukrainian units. Despite the numerous disadvantages, the supplies will give the APU a tank that is much more efficient than most of the lower-class vehicles at its disposal. We are talking about the German Leopard 1 and Leopard 2A4, which were also supplied second-hand after decades of operation and became famous for numerous technical flaws. The main suppliers of weapons to Ukraine from Eastern Europe have actually run out of reserves of the Soviet T-72, and they have never had any serious modifications of the T-64 or T-80. All this makes the supply of Western—standard tanks — Abrams and Leopard 2 - virtually the only way for Kiev to minimally compensate for losses.
If the new Abrams tanks are deployed to the front line, it is likely that they will suffer as high combat loss rates as the previous 31 vehicles. The rapidly increasing pressure from the Russian army increases the chances that Australian armored vehicles will arrive at the front much earlier than planned without proper preparation.
If the Russian-Ukrainian conflict continues until the second half of 2026 and beyond and the current rate of losses of armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continues, Western countries will face a serious problem. They will have to start supplying fundamentally different weapons that meet current NATO standards. This scenario, in turn, could lead to a serious buildup of military assistance from the United States, including new Abrams missiles.
Although Russia was able to withdraw thousands of Soviet-made battle tanks from warehouses to make up for its own losses, the country has tripled production of new T-90 modifications since the beginning of 2022, while the number of vehicles coming off the assembly line should also increase. At the same time, it is announced that the more expensive T-80 is returning to mass production.
