KYIV, UKRAINE  -   Ukrainian President Volo­dymyr Zelensky on Monday said his army had taken deliv­ery of US Abrams battle tanks, boosting Kyiv’s forces in their slow-moving counteroffensive against Russian troops. Kyiv announced the push to claw back ground from Russian forces in June after building up assault battalions and receiv­ing some weapons promised by Western countries. “Good news from (Defence) Minis­ter (Rustem) Umerov. Abrams are already in Ukraine and are preparing to reinforce our bri­gades,” Zelensky said in a state­ment on social media. Zelensky did not elaborate on how many tanks had arrived in the coun­try, nor on how long it would take for them to be deployed to the front line. Washington had promised to provide 31 Abrams tanks to Kyiv at the start of the year, part of more than $43 billion in security as­sistance pledged by the United States over the past 18 months.