Derelict destroyer

Since being invaded by Russia in February 2022, Ukraine has become a testing ground for the most advanced but untested weapons and other military hardware. After anti-missile systems, attack drones, cluster bombs, and portable anti-tank missile launchers, the battle tanks of Russia and the United States would next be pitted against each other.

The US is reportedly delivering M1A1 Abrams tanks soon after its Ukrainian crews have completed their training. How it will fare in combat against the Russian T-14 Armata remains to be seen.

The US touts the M1A1's armor-piercing shells and its depleted uranium armor. It has a range of 426 kilometers, a top speed of 72 kilometers per hour, and a 120mm smoothbore gun.

Some military analysts, however, regard the Armata as superior to the M1A1 and even Britain's Challenger-2 and Germany's Leopard-2 tanks, which are currently being used in Ukraine. The T-14 has a nearly 500-km range, speeds of 80 to 90 kph, and a 125mm smoothbore cannon.

While Abramses and Armatas will see action on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, a tank in another country got embroiled in another kind of battle — a legal one.

An old model Israeli battle tank, the Merkava Mark 2, was involved in controversy after it was stolen from a military firing zone. Police found the decommissioned tank near the Haifa suburb of Nesher on 20 September.

Four men were arrested on suspicion of stealing it. The main suspect, Ben Zion Raviv, 43, and a resident of Migdal Haemek, argued in a court hearing that he thought the tank was a derelict and was free for the taking.

"The tank is all rusted, its chains are crushed, as if it had flipped over. I wouldn't call it a tank. I don't think I did anything illegal," Raviv told the judge, according to The Times of Israel.

The tank was stripped of weapons and mobility systems years ago and was being used as a "stationary vehicle for soldiers' exercises" in a firing zone that is at times open to the public for hiking, TTI quoted the military as saying.

Raviv said he called for a crane and mover, which brought the tank to a scrapyard. It was later returned to the Tel Saki memorial site.