Ukraine has withdrawn its US-supplied Abrams tanks from the front lines in the face of Russian drone warfare tactics, two US defense officials told the Associated Press.
One of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said swarms of drones flying over Ukraine meant “there isn’t open ground that you can just drive across without fear of detection.”
Christopher Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the decision to move the tanks away from the front.
“When you think about the way the fight has evolved, massed armor in an environment where unmanned aerial systems are ubiquitous can be at risk,” Grady told the AP.
The US agreed to send 31 M1A1 Abrams to Ukraine in January last year, after months of Ukraine asking for advanced weaponry to help counter Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine received the first batch of the tanks in September.
But it doesn’t look like things have gone to plan.
A Russian reconnaissance drone knocked out an M1 Abrams tank near Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine in February, according to Russian state media.
Ukraine has lost five Abrams tanks in recent months, The New York Times reported this month, citing an unnamed senior US official. At least three more have been moderately damaged, Markus Reisner, an Austrian military trainer, told the outlet.
Grady said that Abrams were still important, and that the US and Ukraine would figure out how best to use them, adding: “There is a way to do it.”
He said that the US would work with Ukraine to recalibrate its strategies.
Drones have been a key feature in the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine has used them to devastating effect to take out Russian tanks, with drones responsible for two-thirds of Russian tanks taken out, a NATO official told Foreign Policy earlier this month.
Ukraine has also fallen victim to similar attacks.
While the Abrams has a track record of defeating Soviet-made armor, it can be exposed to some of the same threats — antitank mines, missiles, artillery, and drones — that have eliminated Ukraine’s Leopard and Challenger tanks.
