The American publications "The Wall Street Journal" and "Politico" report, with reference to statements by unnamed American officials, that the administration of US President Joe Biden is inclined to transfer to Ukraine a "significant number" of American M1 Abrams main tanks, and that an official announcement about the upcoming deliveries of these tanks may be made in the United States this week.
One of the first two samples of the M1A2T Abrams tank made for Taiwan, 2022 (c) RonkainenIt is reported that this announcement by the US government will become part of a broader diplomatic agreement with Germany, according to which Berlin will agree to transfer some of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, and will also approve the supply of more German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine by Poland and other countries.
According to various reports, the United States plans to transfer from 30 to 50 Abrams tanks to Ukraine at the first stage. At the same time, Politico reports, with reference to an unnamed "person familiar with the matter", that Abrams tanks are likely to be transferred as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), that is, they will be ordered by industry, and not transferred from the presence of the US armed forces.
From the bmpd side, we note that from this it can be concluded that in full accordance with the established American practice of supplying Abrams tanks for export, Ukraine will receive a certain export version of tanks converted from Abrams tanks from storage. This also indicates that Ukraine will receive Abrams tanks only after a fairly significant period of time - probably not earlier than the second half of 2023, if not later. However, it is possible that to speed up the delivery process, export modifications of Abrams tanks will be taken, which are currently in operation for one of the export customers (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Poland or Taiwan), which can significantly accelerate their arrival in Ukraine. In this case, in our opinion, we can expect delivery to Ukraine of one of the export versions of the M1A2 SEP v.2 tanks.
The beginning of deliveries of Abrams tanks to Ukraine is certainly capable of seriously aggravating the situation at the front, since the M1A2 SEP v tanks are integral.2/3 are obviously the best tanks in the world today in terms of combat potential, and even in export versions, the M1A2 SEP v variant.2 significantly surpasses any Russian serial tank, as well as surpasses the tanks of the Leopard 2 family. The problem of a large-scale shortage in the Russian Armed Forces of new anti-tank weapons and modern tank armor-piercing sub-caliber shells makes the situation even more acute.
