Poland is critical to the Ukraine war effort for many reasons that are not obvious: The transfer of weapons, ammunition, and other supplies from the U.S. and NATO countries to Ukraine has been the lifeline that allowed Kyiv to hold off Moscow’s assault. The U.S. alone has provided to date some $4 billion in assistance. This has included many weapons that have proven particularly effective: Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin anti-tank weapons, and drones.
Other NATO countries also are transferring billions of dollars of military hardware to Ukraine. The U.K. has sent Ukraine an array of modern weapons, including more than 4,000 NLAW anti-tank missiles and hundreds of Starstreak anti-aircraft systems. London is considering sending additional equipment, including armored fighting vehicles and tracked heavy artillery. France is providing mobile 155mm howitzers with thousands of shells and Milan anti-tank missiles. In a stunning reversal of its long-standing arms transfer policy, Germany has sent thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. It has also allowed other countries to send Ukraine German-made weapons. Even the smaller NATO members, such as Estonia, have virtually emptied their stockpiles in an effort to bolster the government in Kyiv.
Recently, the Biden Administration announced that it would increase its efforts to help Ukraine defeat Moscow. Washington is sending that country nearly 100 155mm long-range howitzers, tens of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition, specially designed “Phoenix Ghost” drones, helicopters, air defense and counter-battery radars, and armored vehicles.
Several NATO members have gone an extra step by sending Ukraine offensive arms, particularly Soviet-era main battle tanks, which are precisely the kind of weapon needed to fend off the Russian offensive in the Donbas. These tanks are perfect for Ukraine because they are the same as those it already operates, requiring no additional training, specialized support equipment, or unique munitions. The Czech Republic is reported to have already shipped dozens of T-72 tanks along with multiple rocket launchers, artillery, and infantry fighting vehicles. Poland followed close behind, sending more than 100 of its T-72s eastward. With these additional weapons, Ukraine has a chance of defending itself against Russia.
As the U.S. and NATO countries deplete their weapons inventories and fleets of tanks and armored fighting vehicles in order to assist Ukraine, they are simultaneously taking steps to replenish them, either from domestic production sources or through foreign military sales. The Pentagon has activated a special team to expedite the transfer of weapons and material not only to Ukraine but to other NATO allies.
There have been high-level discussions between senior Pentagon officials and industry leaders about ways to replenish depleted U.S. stocks of weapons and ammunition while continuing to support Ukraine’s needs. One step the Pentagon could take would be to backfill the drawdown of older towed 155mm howitzers being sent to Ukraine with a modern mobile, truck-mounted 155mm system.
When the war in Ukraine started, Poland was in the middle of a decade-long program to modernize and expand its armed forces. Warsaw was concerned that the buildup of Russian forces along a major border with NATO posed a direct and growing threat to Poland. Central to this effort was the replacement of aging Soviet-era weapons systems with better Western versions. To that end, Poland acquired U.S. F-16 fighters, Patriot air defense systems and HIMARS rocket artillery. In addition, Warsaw entered into a contract with the U.S. to acquire 32 F-35A fifth-generation stealth fighters.
Most recently, Warsaw signed an agreement with Washington to buy 250 Abrams main battle tanks. This is an important new step in Poland’s military modernization campaign since it will equip the Polish Army with the same basic main battle tank operated by the U.S. Armored Brigade Combat (ABCT). The U.S. maintains at least one full ABCT on continuous rotational deployment to Poland. The addition of the Abrams to the Polish tank fleet will allow local forces and U.S. units to better train together. In addition, operating the same equipment will reduce the logistics and sustainment burden for U.S. forces deployed on NATO’s eastern flank.
Poland has hundreds of additional Soviet-era tanks that it could send to Ukraine, providing that it had an assured supply of Western equipment to replace them. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered to ship Challenger II tanks, the best in the British inventory, to Poland should that country send additional T-72s to Ukraine.

T-72 tanks from Poland. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
While Johnson’s proposal is a sign of NATO solidarity, it makes more practical sense for the Pentagon to accelerate the transfer of the 250 Abrams tanks Poland has purchased. Once this transfer has been completed, Washington should consider offering Poland additional Abrams tanks if Warsaw transfers more of its inventory of Russian-designed tanks to Ukraine.
The refurbishment and upgrading of Abrams tanks for both the U.S. and foreign purchasers are performed at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio. Currently, the facility works on approximately 15 tanks a month. During the Reagan years, Lima produced 45 tanks monthly. The facility is still capable of that rate of production.
Based on a business-as-usual approach, the upgrading of Polish Abrams tanks will have to be squeezed in among upgrades for the U.S. Army and existing foreign sales. But the Biden Administration could accelerate deliveries to Poland, pushing back the production of tanks for other countries. It could also increase production from 15 to 30 or even 45 vehicles a month. The Polish Minister of Defense made such a request in his recent visit to Washington. Doing so would ensure that Poland would get the tanks it has purchased within a year, at most.

An M1A1 Abrams Tank fires off a round as a demonstration during 1st Tank Battalion’s Jane Wayne Spouse Appreciation Day aboard the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif., April 3, 2018. The purpose of the event is to build resiliency in spiritual well being, the will to fight and a strong home life for the 1st Tanks Marines and their families. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Rachel K. Porter)
It is clear in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that Poland is the linchpin of NATO’s eastern defenses. Warsaw has accepted that role and is doing what it can to improve its military posture. It is spending billions to change out its obsolescent Soviet-era equipment for modern NATO systems. Acquiring 250 Abrams tanks is a critical part of this process. Now more than ever, the Biden Administration should assist Poland in any it can to improve its military capabilities.
Dr. Daniel Goure, a 1945 Contributing Editor, is Senior Vice President with the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. He is involved in a wide range of issues as part of the institute’s national security program. Dr. Goure has held senior positions in both the private sector and the U.S. Government. Most recently, he was a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. Dr. Goure spent two years in the U.S. Government as the director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also served as a senior analyst on national security and defense issues with the Center for Naval Analyses, Science Applications International Corporation, SRS Technologies, R&D Associates, and System Planning Corporation.

Alex
April 29, 2022 at 10:50 am
If someone wants to know the truth about the civil war in the Donbass, about all the atrocities of the Bandera clean-ups and why Russia was forced to intervene, then it is better to watch films by independent journalists. There are already many such journalists who fight for truth and freedom. For example, a documentary by the German journalist Wilhelm Domcke-Schulz.
A documentary film about the war crimes of the Bandera Nazis during the period of Russia’s special military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine is in production. It will be a real information bomb, where the war crimes of Bandera Nazis will be shown and proved.
The documentary “Remember Odessa” tells how the Bandera Nazis burned Ukrainians alive and other heinous war crimes.
The documentary “To Live and Die in Donbass” tries to fill this gaping information gap in the West. He looks into the tormented soul of the inhabitants of Donbass, who really want only one thing – to live self-determining according to their own rules and values. Not submitting to foreign forces and ideologies.
In the east of Ukraine, in the Donbass, a war has been raging since the beginning of 2014. A civil war that claimed more than 15,000 lives over the years, including several hundred children. They had to die, because the national-fascist coup government in Kyiv, funded by the West, trained and militarily heavily armed, would not tolerate any resistance to their illegitimate rule, no matter the cost.
Therefore, in April 2014, the putschists deployed the Ukrainian army, supported by dozens of right-wing extremist volunteer battalions, and have since bombed city centers, residential areas, schools, hospitals and infrastructure, killing civilians.
This perennial crime has gone completely unnoticed by the Western public. Politicians and the media avoid this topic and reports about how the devil pours holy water. Because a public discussion about the crimes of the Ukrainian regime would reveal only one thing – with what mass murderers and terrorists the so-called “west of values” in Ukraine has a common language, if only to defend their goals and interests.
Lend-lease is a commodity loan, and not cheap: for all the ammunition, equipment and food supplied by the United States, many future generations of Ukrainian citizens will pay. Zelensky is driving the country into a debt hole.
Dude
April 30, 2022 at 7:03 pm
Russian troll. Brainwashed or paid by Putler’s propaganda.
CK
April 29, 2022 at 1:31 pm
Ah, I see your tactic. You add a little shitty first paragraph so it doesn’t detect your duplicate post. Is this what it has come to now, you just posting the same exact post 2, 3, 4, 5 times per article?
Wow, did they run out of paper in Russia, Alex? You guys can’t print new material? Literally using the same lines, over and over again, and now in duplicate in every post!
Are you so defeated you can’t even come up with anything new? How sad. Now the idiot is talking about lend-lease at the end of his post, because he literally just copy + pasted it from another thread, with zero relevance to this one.
Here’s a reminder:
If someone wanted to know the truth about anything in Ukraine Alex, the last person they would go to is you.
Paragraphs and paragraphs of bollocks, dubious claims about “independent journalists”, random documentarians, conspiracy theorists, deluded claims that of course, have no backup, lie after lie after lie.
Classical Kremlin troll approach. Just flood the internet, the comments, the media, with tosh, doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure you write some old nonsense. Make sure to say the claim is supported by some dude in Germany, France, the states. If it’s a “documentary” (usually from youtube) then the better.
Anything that victimises Russia, always the victim, always the bullied, never the problem. It’s always the Nazis. It’s always some pseudo-historical point.
Anyone that has had the misfortune to study your “tactics” sees the forest for the trees, the pattern of lies, disinformation, blanketing of random claims, deflection, obfuscation, and other words beyond your vocabulary.
It’s hopeless Alex. Your lies are as short as your intellect. What a pathetic job, to sit in your government shed, spreading your pathetic, government lies.
A pathetic job for a truly pathetic man. A better match could not be made in heaven.
aldol11
April 29, 2022 at 4:04 pm
Leopards better suited for Poland than Abrams
Alex
April 30, 2022 at 5:44 am
Neither Abrams nor Leopard will be able to cross a single bridge in Ukraine due to their weight. Stupid.
According to the latest data, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania have prepared a secret document on the division of western Ukraine. Finally, the peoples of the west of Ukraine will get to Europe. But there is another document about what European countries will do with the Bandera Nazis, whom they hate. this development of events is not a secret; many analysts have written and continue to write about it. The good news is that the Ukrainians of the East will return to their Russian brothers, and we will return our original Polish territories. It’s just great!
CK
April 30, 2022 at 6:07 am
Stupidity is something you’d be well acquainted with!
Sometimes, I envy your delusions Alex. The world you live in must be fascinating!
One minute you accuse us of being Bandera Nazis, the next that we will crush Bandera Nazis, one moment we are enemies, next moment we are “liberators” of Ukraine …
Go easy on that Vodka man, I hear medical supplies are so low over there you’ll soon have to be using it to clean wounds!
Alex
April 30, 2022 at 7:49 am
“NATO is a ploy, it is a structure whose purpose is to hide America’s dominance over Europe.”
Charles de Gaulle.
It must be understood that Europe will also be responsible for subordinating the United States. Questions “what are we for” are no longer important for Russia. If Europe wants to become a bargaining chip in the battle against Bandera’s Nazis, then so be it. Personally, I, like many acquaintances from Poland, are going to Russia. There are more chances to survive in Russia. And let the idiots die for US interests in Ukraine.
CK
April 30, 2022 at 11:42 am
“I, like many of my acquaintances from Poland, are going to Russia.”
You know what they say, if it sounds like an idiot, looks like an idiot, and says idiotic things like an idiot, it’s probably an idiot! ?
Alex, there isn’t a single person in Poland with an ounce of grey matter in their heads going to Russia. Although in your case, I guess that explains everything.
Bon voyage!
William Craddock
April 30, 2022 at 2:46 pm
Anything we’ve read that’s pro-Russian conveniently excludes Pres. Putin’s previous practice and pattern of hideous conduct, to include his murders of Investigative Journalists, Novicheck poisonings of Dissidents attempting refuge in London, which by the way they survived, but it wound up killing a female Police Officer recovering evidence of Putin’s Attempted Murder. All the way back to his operatives planting provable Russian explosives(unavailable to the blamed Chechnyan Separatists by the way) in apartment buildings where Putin’s innocent fellow Citizens resided ! The Putinist’s are flat out unable rationalize any of Putin’s crimes against innocent people either in the Putin’s perilous past or Putin’s increasingly perilous present.
Alex
May 1, 2022 at 7:06 am
And now, not stupid propaganda from pseudo-journalists and squealing Bandera bastards, but real facts. Let’s see how Russia “lost”:
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, Russia has destroyed 143 aircraft, 112 helicopters, 660 unmanned aerial vehicles, 279 anti-aircraft missile systems, 2,678 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 308 multiple rocket launchers, 1,196 field artillery pieces and mortars, as well as 2,503 units of special military vehicles. Destroyed 43.814 Bandera Nazis and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 3,540 soldiers surrendered.
Utilization of US and NATO equipment is proceeding according to plan:
High-precision missiles “Onyx” in the Odessa region at a military airfield destroyed a hangar with weapons and ammunition received from the United States and European countries, and also destroyed the runway.
Every day, the flags of the people’s militia of Donbass, Russia and Chechnya are raised over a new liberated settlement. Everything can be seen on the map of hostilities.
A French journalist released another film about the atrocities of Bandera Nazi bastards. The photo and video evidence is simply amazing – these bastards of Bandera Nazis only need to be exterminated, finally and completely.
The point is that no matter how hard the pseudo-journalists try to lie, the truth inevitably comes to the surface.
By the way, Russian special forces seized important documents from one of the American biological laboratories in Ukraine. The announcement is this: the experiments that the Americans conducted on people, on Ukrainians, amaze the imagination with their cruelty.
I will say this: “Hello, new Third Reich, you will also be destroyed.” History is cyclical. Again the West is trying to defeat Russia and will be defeated again.
CK
May 1, 2022 at 8:08 am
Hey Alex, look at this! You’re in the news!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/01/troll-factory-spreading-russian-pro-war-lies-online-says-uk
“Russian internet trolls based in an old arms factory in St Petersburg are targeting world leaders online and spreading support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the British government has said, citing research.”
“The headquarters is allegedly located in rented space in St Petersburg’s Arsenal Machine-building Factory, a company that manufactures military equipment and technology.”
“The study details how the Russian president’s regime is trying to manipulate public opinion on social media, as well as in the comments sections of major media outlets.”
“The analysis suggests one main activity is “brigading”, to steer attention of discussion on social media and in comments sections of newspapers towards favoured opinions. Manipulation of polls in western media was also observed, including to skew the results of a survey on whether sanctions against Russia were supported.”
Does this look like anyone we know? Also, sucks that they are making you work on a Saturday man! Is it that bad over there you guys can’t make ends meet?
Does Sveta not have enough clients? Reach out man, we want to help!
CK
May 1, 2022 at 9:45 am
Hey Alex, look at this! You’re in the news!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/01/troll-factory-spreading-russian-pro-war-lies-online-says-uk
“Russian internet trolls based in an old arms factory in St Petersburg are targeting world leaders online and spreading support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the British government has said, citing research.”
“The headquarters is allegedly located in rented space in St Petersburg’s Arsenal Machine-building Factory, a company that manufactures military equipment and technology.”
“The study details how the Russian president’s regime is trying to manipulate public opinion on social media, as well as in the comments sections of major media outlets.”
“The analysis suggests one main activity is “brigading”, to steer attention of discussion on social media and in comments sections of newspapers towards favoured opinions. Manipulation of polls in western media was also observed, including to skew the results of a survey on whether sanctions against Russia were supported.”
Does this look like anyone we know? Also, sucks that they are making you work on a Saturday man! Is it that bad over there you guys can’t make ends meet?
Does Sveta not have enough clients? Reach out man, we want to help!
Here’s a reminder:
If someone wanted to know the truth about anything in Ukraine Alex, the last person they would go to is you.
Paragraphs and paragraphs of bollocks, dubious claims about “independent journalists”, random documentarians, conspiracy theorists, deluded claims that of course, have no backup, lie after lie after lie.
Classical Kremlin troll approach. Just flood the internet, the comments, the media, with tosh, doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure you write some old nonsense. Make sure to say the claim is supported by some dude in Germany, France, the states. If it’s a “documentary” (usually from youtube) then the better.
Anything that victimises Russia, always the victim, always the bullied, never the problem. It’s always the Nazis. It’s always some pseudo-historical point.
Anyone that has had the misfortune to study your “tactics” sees the forest for the trees, the pattern of lies, disinformation, blanketing of random claims, deflection, obfuscation, and other words beyond your vocabulary.
It’s hopeless Alex. Your lies are as short as your intellect. What a pathetic job, to sit in your government shed, spreading your pathetic, government lies.
A pathetic job for a truly pathetic man. A better match could not be made in heaven.