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Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has dodged speculation regarding sending retiring M1A1 Abrams main battles tanks to Ukraine, after being questioned at a recent press conference in the United Kingdom.
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The Minister for Defence, attending a media doorstop in London, said the federal government is considering all Australian Defence Force equipment but he could not go into particular capabilities about what will be sent to the country fighting Russian military forces.
“We are definitely looking at all the material that we have and all the material that is coming to its end of life within the Australian Defence Force about suitability for Ukraine and we’ve been doing that from the outset,” he said.
“There’s some platforms that work and some that, frankly, will not work in Ukraine. And having operated those platforms, whilst we understand Ukraine is a different context to the context in which Australia has operated those platforms, we are the experts in terms of how those platforms operate, and we do have a sense of what’s going to be useful for Ukraine and what is not.
“We are very mindful of platforms which are coming to their end of life within the Australian Defence Force, about their usefulness, their potential usefulness for Ukraine. I think that the other point to simply say is we are in an ongoing conversation with Ukraine about what capabilities we have, including those which are coming to the end of their life within our Defence Force.”
When questioned about possible discussions the Australian government has had with the US about handling and transferring ADF M1A1 main battle tanks to Ukraine, Minister Marles confirmed there was an ongoing dialogue.
“There are often real questions that need to be answered in terms of the handling of technology with the original supplier of the technology, which is often the United States,” he said.
“There will always be a conversation around that in terms of then on supplying that technology to Ukraine. And that does form part of how we consider the usefulness of assets which are coming to their end of life within the Australian Defence Force.
“In the general sense, we definitely do talk to the US about the platforms that we have. There is then, whatever platform we’re talking about, there’s a logistical exercise and actually getting it to Ukraine, but we’ve been able to meet those challenges in the past with the various platforms we’ve managed to get to Ukraine.”
The Deputy Prime Minister also confirmed ongoing discussions regarding the supply of 155mm artillery shells, which are in critical demand in Ukraine.
Minister Marles said, “155s (155mm shells) have definitely been on the agenda. We’ve done a lot of work in this space. We continue to talk to Ukraine about this. We’ve worked closely with France, for example, in relation to this as well in terms of supporting Ukraine. So we’ll continue to look at what options are available in terms of getting those kinds of munitions to Ukraine.”
