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The Defense Department is fast-tracking the delivery of M-1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, drawing on older, refurbished models that can be delivered to the battlefield by the fall, Pentagon officials confirmed Tuesday.
In January, President Biden said the U.S. would send Kyiv a total of 31 top-of-the-line M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, enough to outfit a Ukrainian armored battalion. But there was a hitch: They would be coming from the assembly line at General Dynamics and could take a year or more to arrive in the country.
The tanks now destined for Ukraine will be the older, but still formidable, M1A1 Abrams model.
“These will be excess hulls in our inventory that we will refurbish and refit,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday.
