Main battle tanks the US has provided to Ukraine have inadequate armor and ammunition for the modern battlefield, their operators have admitted to CNN, complaining about being priority targets for Russian drones.
US President Joe Biden announced the delivery of 31 Abrams tanks to Kiev in January 2023, reportedly as a way to pressure other NATO countries to send German-made Leopards in larger numbers.
Though the tanks arrived too late for last year’s summer offensive, they entered battle in February. Russian forces have documented eight Abrams kills so far. One of the wrecked tanks was even towed to Moscow as a trophy.
“Its armor is not sufficient,” one soldier from Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, stationed in Donbass, told CNN – the first Western channel to observe the Abrams on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“It doesn’t protect the crew. For real, today this is the war of drones. So now, when the tank rolls out, they always try to hit them,” said the soldier, identified only by the callsign ‘Joker.’
“Without defense, the crew doesn’t survive on the battlefield,” said his teammate, ‘Dnipro.’
The 47th is the only Ukrainian unit operating the US-made tanks. The brigade is now working on field modifications to the M1A1, including mounting boxes of reactive armor – as witnessed by CNN – as well as wire frames that the Ukrainians previously derided as “cope cages” when employed by the Russians.
CNN’s reporting seemed to contradict statements from the Pentagon last month that the Abrams were pulled back from the battlefield because of the threat from Russian drones. The US behemoth has proven particularly vulnerable to kamikaze UAVs striking their weak upper armor.
Ukrainian tank crews complained that electronics inside the vehicles can be shorted out by condensation from rain and fog. The engine on one tank, which had just been shipped from Poland, had already broken down. Moreover, the US supplied them with anti-tank ammunition not suitable for purpose.
“Much more often we work as artillery. You need to take apart a tree line or a building. We had a case when we fired 17 rounds into a house and it was still standing,” said Joker.
Men of the 47th have also lamented that the Abrams was designed to operate with air superiority and artillery support, according to NATO doctrine.
“We have no aviation and artillery. We have only tank. And it’s the problem,” Joker said, adding that Western weapons being sent to Ukraine were too slow to arrive and too few in number. “We are losing time. It’s death to us.”
The US and its allies have supplied over $200 billion worth of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, drones, and other equipment to Ukraine over the past two years, while insisting this did not make them party to the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any equipment sent to Ukraine will be destroyed and its supply only prolongs the conflict without changing its outcome.
Signing off from Ukraine, CNN’s chief international security correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, described the Abrams tanks as “machines built at the peak of American hyperpower decades ago, sent – halfheartedly, it seems – to hold back a fast-changing world.”