MELBOURNE: Australia will give 49 of its ageing M1A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine months after Kyiv requested the redundant fleet, Defence Minister Richard Marles stated on Thursday (Oct 17).
The Australian authorities was giving Ukraine most of its American-made M1A1 tanks, that are valued at A$245 million (US$163 million), Marles stated. They are going to be changed in Australia by a fleet of 75 next-generation M1A2 tanks.
In February, Marles stated that giving Ukraine the tanks as they have been phased out was not on his authorities’s agenda. However on Thursday he stated he didn’t regard the donation as a backflip on his authorities’s earlier place.
“We speak with the Ukrainian authorities constantly round how finest we will assist them,” Marles instructed Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“We have a look at the fabric that we now have; its effectiveness, … the form that it’s in, to be frank, whether or not it might have the ability to make a distinction, whether or not it may be sustained and maintained in order that it may be stored within the combat. And the Abrams tanks match all of these standards,” he added.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, wouldn’t be drawn on opposition lawmakers’ criticisms that the tanks ought to have been donated earlier.
“This can be a very well timed, a really substantial and really fit-for-purpose announcement,” Myroshnychenko stated. “We respect the choice of the federal government. It was not a straightforward one and I’m very pleased that it was a optimistic one.”
The tanks deliver the full worth of Australia’s navy help to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion to over A$1.3 billion (US$866 million).
The United States agreed to ship 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in January 2023 after an aggressive months lengthy marketing campaign by Kyiv arguing that the tanks have been very important to its capacity to breach Russian strains.
