The first American M1A1 Abrams tanks promised by Washington back in January after weeks of hesitation have arrived in Ukraine. "Abrams are already in Ukraine and preparing to reinforce our brigades," announced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on social media Monday, September 25, without specifying how many vehicles had actually been delivered. The United States had promised a total of 31.
This follows deliveries of the Challenger 2 by the UK and the Leopard (1 and 2) by Germany. These first Abrams tanks have been supplied to Ukraine "months ahead" of schedule, according to the New York Times (NYT).
The timing of their arrival on the ground is pivotal for the Ukrainian army. According to General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, who commands Ukrainian troops in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts and who spoke on CNN on Saturday, Ukraine intends to continue its counter-offensive despite deteriorating weather conditions.
Dmitri Peskov, the Russian presidential spokesman, quipped about the tanks on Tuesday. "Abrams tanks are serious weapons," he conceded, before echoing Vladimir Putin and saying that "they'll burn too." He promised that their arrival on the battlefield "will not change the balance of power" between the Russian and Ukrainian armies.
The tanks delivered to the Ukrainians are contemporaries of the T-80 and T-90 used by the Russian army. They were developed in the 1970s by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems). Each tank is armed with a 120-mm cannon that can fire depleted uranium ammunition capable of piercing all types of armor.
Depending on the model, it weighs between 56.2 and 66 tons. Its crew includes a driver, a commander, a loader and a gunner. It is powered by a 1,500 hp turbine engine, capable of using several types of fuel (kerosene, gasoline, diesel), with a range of 150 to 200 kilometers off-road and over 400 kilometers on-road, at speeds of 48 to 72 kilometers per hour. According to Reuters, each model costs around $10 million (about €9.46 million).
The Abrams tank entered service with the US Army in 1980 and had its baptism of fire during Operation Desert Storm, during the first Gulf War, to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation (January 17-February 28, 1991), then during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) in January 1992 on the performance of armored vehicles during Desert Storm noted that "several M1A1 crews reported receiving direct frontal hits from Iraqi T-72s with minimal damage. In fact, the enemy destroyed no Abrams tanks during the Persian Gulf war."
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