WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will work with allies to transfer Soviet-made tanks for beef up Ukrainian defenses in the country’s eastern Donbas region, a US official said on Friday.
The decision to act as an intermediary to help transfer the tanks, which the Ukrainian troops know how to use, responds to a request from the president Volodymyr Zelensky from Ukraine, the official said.
A Ukrainian soldier walks near destroyed Russian tanks outside kyiv on April 1, 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP)
It is the first time in the war that the United States has helped transfer tanks.
The official said the transfers would begin soon, but declined to say how many tanks would be sent or which countries they would come from.
They will allow Ukraine to carry out artillery strikes range against Russian targets in Donbas, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The arrival of the tanks could be another sign of a new phase in the war, which has been going on for five weeks and has been dominated by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and facilities from the air, and a stalled Russian advance on the ground.
Earlier this week, Russian officials indicated they were refocusing their efforts on eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.
Zelensky on Sunday called on NATO allies to provide tanks and planes, in addition to the anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry that has become a staple of arms transfers to Ukraine from the West.
Frustrated by what he sees as a slow pace of arms transfers, Zelensky specifically called for tanks, speaking a day after President Joe Biden met with top Ukrainian officials in Poland.
An angry Zelensky criticized the West for what he called its “ping-pong” on arms transfers.
“I have spoken with the defenders of Mariupol today,” he said, referring to the besieged city that has been under Russian attack for four weeks.
“If only those who have been thinking for 31 days about how to deliver dozens of planes and tanks had the 1% of your courage.”
In the past, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to call the weapons it provides Ukraine defensive and has focused on smaller, more portable weapons.
But as the war has progressed, the definition of defensive has become more elastic.
Ukraine had already found a source of tanks, capturing at least 161 of Russia on the battlefield, according to military analysis site Oryx, although Russia also destroyed several Ukrainian tanks.
For its part, Russia has captured 43 Ukrainian tanks, according to analysts studying photos and videos on social media.
The decision to help transfer the tanks comes as the Ukrainian military has continued to push back Russia’s ground advance.
Pentagon officials were quick to point out that Russia’s pivot to Donbas and away from capturing kyiv, the capital, could be a necessity for Moscow after Russian forces stalled in the central part of the country.
On Wednesday, Biden administration officials, citing declassified US intelligence, said the president Vladimir Putin of Russia had been misinformed by his advisers about the problems of the Russian army in the Ukraine.
The intelligence, US officials said, also showed what appeared to be growing tension between Putin and his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, once one of the most trusted members of the Kremlin’s inner circle.
Russian officials have disputed the allegations, with the Kremlin on Thursday calling it a “complete misunderstanding” of the situation that could have “bad consequences.”
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