According to a Tuesday report, United States officials have said that the Biden administration is moving in the direction of delivering a number of Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine with a potential update on the plan this week.
The news would come in coordination with a move from Germany, which would also send some of its Leopard 2 tanks, as well as allowing more tanks made by Germany to be sent by other countries, according to The Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday, Spiegel Politics reported that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now also planning to send tanks to Ukraine. Poland has also officially requested approval from Germany to send Leopard tanks to the country.
“The Germans have already received our request for consent to transfer Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine,” Poland Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said. “I also appeal to the German side to join the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks.”
The United States, Germany, and other countries have contended over the delivery of tanks to war-torn Ukraine in order to help the nation in its fight against Russia.
Last week, at the World Economic Forum, the chancellor privately told legislators that he was not going to give Leopard tanks to Ukraine until the United States said it would send the Abrams tanks. After speaking with Scholz last week, President Joe Biden said he would examine sending Abrams tanks, even though the Pentagon was against it.
A top German official said that the topic had been debated for over a week and seemed to be headed towards a solution, according to the Journal.
Military authorities had pushed back against the notion of sending the Abrams tanks due to how the military equipment uses gas and the effort that goes into their maintenance.
“The Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment. It’s expensive, it’s hard to train on. It has a jet engine, I think it’s about three gallons to the mile of jet fuel. It is not the easiest system to maintain,” Colin Kahl, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, told the press last week after traveling to Kyiv. “It may or may not be the right system.”
Officials in Germany have noted that Scholz was worried about Ukraine having so many of the military tanks that were made in Germany, since it could make it look like Germany was a main player in the war. The country wants to take action with the allies, specifically the United States since it does not have its own nuclear deterrent, the officials noted.
However, Germany keeps nuclear weapons of the United States on its land.
“We absolutely want to have German tanks in Ukraine but they need to be part of a broad coalition that would provide a mix of hardware, including the Abrams,” one official reportedly stated.
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