US Patriot missile defense systems and Abram tanks are set to be deployed to Ukraine faster than originally planned, US defense officials said on Tuesday. The announcement of the acceleration of Patriot deployments came shortly after it was reported that the US will accelerate the time it takes to ship Abrams tanks to Ukraine by sending older M1-A1 models of America’s main battle tank instead of the more modern version of the tank, according to two US officials. The US still intends to send 31 M1-A1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, the same number as previously announced and the size of a complete Ukrainian tank battalion