Abrams tanks for training Ukrainian servicemen will arrive in Germany in the coming weeks. This was announced on April 21 by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
"We have accelerated the delivery time of M1 Abrams tanks in order to provide Ukraine with even more armored vehicles in the coming months. The tanks that Ukrainians will use for training will arrive here in Germany in the next few weeks," he said after a meeting of the contact group on Ukraine in Ramstein.
Austin noted that the participants of the contact group supplied Ukraine with more than 230 tanks and over 1.5 thousand armored vehicles, as well as ammunition.
Earlier, on April 6, Deputy Pentagon spokesman Sabrina Singh indicated that the United States intends to deliver Abrams tanks to Ukraine by the end of this year. Training on them has not yet begun.
Before that, on March 21, the Pentagon announced that the United States would hand over outdated samples of the Abrams tank to Ukraine by the fall. The Ministry of Defense has decided that Abrams M1A1 tanks will be sent instead of M1A2.
On February 23, the commander of the ground forces of the American Armed Forces, Christine Wormut, noted that it may take more than a year to deliver American Abrams tanks to Ukraine. She stressed that the United States supplies not only Abrams tanks, but also auxiliary equipment, such as repair and evacuation vehicles, ammunition and a training package.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned the supply of weapons to Ukraine. So, on January 16, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that a new round of deliveries of more advanced military equipment to Ukraine could "only drag out the whole story."
The West has increased military and financial support for Ukraine against the background 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.