Ukraine's New M-1 Abrams Tanks Are Ready—But Their New Brigade Might Not Be
Ukraine is getting 49 M-1 tanks from Australia. It risks wasting them.
Nine months after Australia pledged 49 surplus M-1A1 Abrams tanks to the Ukrainian war effort, the 69-ton combat vehicles are finally about to reach Ukraine. A photo that circulated online on Friday depicts one of the heavily-armed tanks in Poland, presumably awaiting onward shipment to Ukraine.
Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy celebrated the Abrams’ imminent arrival way back on May 18. “I’m grateful for Australia’s comprehensive support, for the Abrams tanks that are helping our warriors defend Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said at a meeting in Rome with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Ukrainian troops surely welcome the fresh tanks, even as heavy armored vehicles play a smaller and smaller role along the drone-patrolled, mine-infested 1,100-km front line of Russia’s 41-month wider war on Ukraine.
But the brigade the U.S.-made tanks are likeliest to join, the 47th Mechanized Brigade, was recently in the throes of a leadership crisis. Citing “clueless leaders” ordering troops to execute “stupid tasks,” one of the brigade’s battalion commanders, Oleksandr Shyrshyn practically begged for his chain of command to relieve him of duty in a May 16 post on social media.