The United States is not ready to provide Ukraine with its most advanced heavy tanks, the Abrams, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday, citing maintenance and training issues.
Ukraine has been asking the West for weeks for modern tanks to repel the Russian invasion, but the latter has so far only sent light tanks and armored personnel carriers.
“I don’t think we’re there,” Pentagon number three Colin Kahl said when asked during a news conference about the possibility of sending Abrams tanks to Kyiv after the UK’s announcement last weekend that it was the first country to pledge heavy tanks, Challenger 2.
The delivery of Leopard tanks is also blocked
“The Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment. It’s expensive, requires hard training, has a jet engine. I think it consumes 11 liters of kerosene per km,” said Colin Kahl, Under Secretary of Defense for Strategy. “It’s not the easiest system to maintain,” he added, though he did not rule out a change in the US position in the future.
He also noted that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has so far carefully avoided supplying the Ukrainians with weapons that “they can’t fix, they can’t maintain and they can’t afford long-term because it’s not in their interest.” .
According to various US and German media, Germany refuses to hand over its Leopard main battle tanks to Kyiv until Washington has done the same with its Abrams.
Source: BFM TV
