Ukraine to receive Abrams tanks from US as soon as this fall - sources

The Pentagon plans to speed up the delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, a US official and a source familiar with the situation said, providing the vital equipment to Kyiv as soon as this fall, Reuters reports.

The Biden administration pledged to supply Ukraine with 31 advanced M1 Abrams tanks after months of shunning the idea of deploying the difficult-to-maintain tanks to Ukraine. The new plan speeds up delivery by about a year, according to a Congressional aide briefed on the matter.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the faster timeline because the Department of Defense had not previously offered any specific date for its effort to get the tanks into Ukrainian hands, only saying it would take "months."

"We're working on that," White House spokesperson John Kirby told CNN on March 21. "There are some changes that you can make to the process to sort of speed that up."