American M1Abrams "roll" in Poland - New base next to Ukraine

M1 Abrams "roll" in Poland: NATO's rapid response armored brigade for Ukraine

warnews247

The first army tanks and vehicles to power an entire armored brigade as a strike force against Russia along NATO's eastern flank have arrived at a new storage facility in Poland.

Fourteen M1 Abrams tanks and an M88 armored recovery vehicle arrived by rail Thursday at the Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 construction site in Powidz, Army spokesman Terry Welch said in an emailed statement Friday.

In addition, the end of NATO's BALTOPS-24 exercise last week sent mixed messages, as deterrence, aggression and first strike seem to be intertwined concepts day by day as Ukraine loses more and more territory. BALTOPS-24 is the premier naval-focused exercise of NATO countries in the Baltic region.

14 M1A2 Abrams battle tanks & an M88 recovery vehicle arrived by rail June 27 at the Powidz Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 worksite in Poland , moving the NATO-funded, single most significant infrastructure endeavor by NATO in 3 decades one step closer to fully mission capable.

In addition to the 14 tanks, the site, about 250 miles west of the Ukrainian border, will soon host up to 85 tanks, 190 armored fighting vehicles, including the M2 Bradley, and 35 guns, including the M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer, and ammunition.

The facility, maintained by the Army's 405th Field Support Brigade, is NATO's most significant single infrastructure effort in three decades, according to an Army announcement Friday. It will be fully operational sometime next year.

"This facility has a tremendous impact on NATO ," brigade commander Col. Ernest Lane II said in a statement. "The strategic location allows us to have multiple avenues of approach and routes of departure and embarkation .The Army operates pre-positioned stockpile sites in seven regions around the world, with six in Europe.

Their locations and reserves can be tapped when a commander requires additional combat power for contingency operations, exercises, or training. This cuts development timelines from 60 days to just one week .

Powidz will have the ability to fully equip a deploying armored brigade arriving in Europe within 48 hours, said Lt. Col. Omar McKen, the brigade's commander in Poland.

Thousands of tons of military cargo for Ukraine arrive weekly through Rzeszow-Jasionka airport and the modernization will allow aircraft to be received around the clock and increase the volume. From May 2023, Romania is modernizing its railway infrastructure – the Valu lui Traiane assembly yard and the station at the port of Constanta – 43.5 million euros have already been allocated for this. The project should be completed in 2025-2026.

Thus, the development of the EU's transport infrastructure is an improvement of NATO's logistics. Therefore, any talk that Ukraine "can" join the EU without formal NATO membership misleads Russian public opinion.

NATO is openly preparing for war against the Russian Federation, and this bloc is not somewhere separate on another planet – it is part of the EU. The transport infrastructure being created, in addition to delivering military cargo to Ukraine, will also facilitate the export of the rest of the Ukrainian resources, agricultural products, minerals, various goods and valuables to the EU to pay off the debts of the Kyiv authorities.

We note that German Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were spotted in Chilia Veche on the banks of the Danube on the Romanian-Ukrainian border. They will probably soon end up in the Odesa region and complement the Ukrainian air defense system.

From the above it can be concluded that NATO's war machine is in harmony with political and military structures, which aim to optimize the alliance's logistics, in order to allow the deployment of the alliance's troops easily and seamlessly within the territory of Ukraine and on the border with Russia. After all, we have already mentioned in the past, both the possibility of creating a "Military Schengen", and the alliance's preparations to intervene in Ukraine