Kyiv Looks to Sharpen its Spear With Advanced Western Arms Plus

Ukraine is set to receive a large influx of advanced weapon systems from the United States and its Western allies in the coming months and throughout the rest of 2023.

In recent days, Western-built heavy main battle tanks (MBT) – specifically the M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, and Challenger 2 – headline the support in Ukraine’s pipeline. However, there is much more at play in that the current tranche of security assistance than big-ticket equipment in itself.

Rather, it appears that the U.S. – and the West at large – is now helping Ukraine rebuild parts of its military through integrated packages, at least on land. Indeed, in December 2022, the U.S. specifically announced that it will impart combined arms training to Ukraine’s land forces. This started earlier in January.

Now, the equipment side of Ukraine’s combined arms evolution is starting to take shape, albeit on paper for the time being. For example, in addition to committing 30 M1 Abrams MBTs, the U.S. is also allocating armoured vehicles, munitions, small arms, and specialized equipment valued at over $3 billion U.S.

This new package contains 50 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) with 500 TOW anti-tank missiles, 100 M113 armoured personnel carriers (APC), 55 mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAP), and 138 high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWV), and 18 155 mm-caliber self-propelled howitzers (SPH). When viewed in light of Biden’s announcement to send 30 M1s, it is evident that Ukraine will build integrated forces on land using this U.S-supplied equipment.