US Abrams Arrive in Ukraine Ahead of Challenging Mud Season

The first of the U.S.-donated M1 Abrams tanks have arrived in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, as Kyiv braces for the onset of muddy conditions that could trip up its grinding counteroffensive efforts.

The U.S. military's M1A1 Abrams "are already in Ukraine and are preparing to reinforce our brigades," Zelensky said in a post to Telegram.

"I am grateful to the allies for fulfiling the agreements," the Ukrainian leader added, offering no further details about how many had been delivered to the war-torn country so far. However,The New York Times reported that further tanks would be sent in the next few months, and these were the first of the tanks pledged by the Biden administration, citing two U.S. defense officials.

"Abrams, welcome to Ukraine!," the country's defense minister, Rustem Umerov, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The U.S. pledged a total of 31 Abrams tanks in late January, as several of Kyiv's Western allies committed main battle tanks like the Leopard 2 and the Challenger 2. These have already played a role in Ukraine's counteroffensive operations, starting from early June.

In mid-March, the Pentagon said it would not be sending later-generation M1A2 Abrams, but refurbished M1A1 tanks. These older tanks would nonetheless have "a very similar capability" to the later M1A2, Pentagon press secretary, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, said. "This is about getting this important combat capability into the hands of the Ukrainians sooner rather than later," he added.

U.S. President Joe Biden said during a bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian leader on Thursday that Abrams tanks would arrive in Ukraine the following week.

Just days before, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. military's Abrams tanks would be arriving in Ukraine soon, and that they would "add another formidable armored capability to join the Leopards that are already on the battlefield."

Experts told Newsweek earlier this month that the impact the M1 Abrams are likely to have will depend on the weather conditions Ukraine's military faced in the fall and winter. The Abrams tank has only seen combat in relatively dry conditions, and it "will be interesting to see how it performs during intensive mechanized combat operations in mud and snow, in a region with lots of streams and rivers," defense writer and military expert Michael Peck previously told Newsweek.

Yet Ukraine is adamant that the country's notorious muddy season, known as rasputitsa, will not stop Ukraine's crawling progress along the southern and eastern front lines.

"In the cold, wet and mud, it is more difficult to fight," Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, said earlier in September. However, "fighting will continue, the counteroffensive will continue," he stressed.

"As everyone saw last time, it's not a problem to fight in winter for both sides—for us and for Russians," Budanov added in a later interview with The War Zone, published on Friday. "It's not a pleasant thing to do, but it's not a big deal."

Budanov said during this interview that Ukraine was "looking forward" to seeing the 31 Abrams, but "we haven't seen them yet."

Yet they will need to be used in "a very tailored way for very specific, well-crafted operations," or else the Abrams will not last very long on the front lines, Budanov added. "They need to be used in those breakthrough operations, but very well-prepared," he said.