The Pentagon, in a significant shift, said that it will send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine by the fall, after facing scrutiny for initially saying it could take a year or two to procure the powerful weapons and get them to the battlefield.
In Washington, a bipartisan group of senators urged the Pentagon to conduct an “urgent and comprehensive” assessment of what it would need to counter Russia in Europe should conflict erupt between the nuclear powers. The lawmakers cited Russia’s extensive combat losses, estimated to be approaching 200,000 dead and wounded, and the Defense Department’s current plan to next assess its needs there in 2026.
“Put simply, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have significantly degraded Russia’s conventional forces over the past year,” their letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. It was signed by Sens. Tom Cotton , Roger Wicker , Richard Blumenthal and Angus King .
“Russia’s military is not the same as it was in 2021, and shows no signs of returning to its pre-invasion state in the near term,”The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about the senators’The administration’s new timeline for transferring tanks to Ukraine follows public remarks by some officials who had indicated that a range of options was being evaluated.
The administration initially denied Zelensky’s plea for tanks while noting that the Abrams creates a massive logistical burden on the battlefield, instead supplyingand suggesting it would make sense for the Germans to supply its smaller Leopard tank instead. In what has become a pattern while assessing Ukraine’s battlefield needs, Biden eventually relented, assessing that the issue would not be resolved without an American commitment of tanks.
A similar conversation has percolated for months about providing Ukraine with fighter jets. Ukrainian officials have asked repeatedly for American-made F-16s, but the Biden administration has assessed that providing them now does not make sense, considering the training and maintenance they require and the significant threat posed by Russian surface-to-air missiles.. U.S.
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