South Korea to provide Ukraine with K600 Rhino engineer vehicles based on copy of M1 Abrams

The South Korean authorities have decided to deliver the first two K600 Rhino engineer demining tanks to Ukraine, according to Defense Express. These vehicles can clear minefields both in rear areas and directly on the front line.

Although these K600 Rhino are not combat vehicles, they are the heaviest military equipment that South Korea has so far decided to transfer to Ukraine. In addition, these K600 Rhino were allocated as part of an urgent decision by the South Korean president to support Ukraine with additional demining equipment, the South Korean edition of The Chosun Ilbo writes.

South Korean journalists write that the country's authorities seem to be afraid of Russia's reaction to such a delivery, so they ask Kyiv to use these engineering tanks only for humanitarian demining in the already de-occupied territories.

But there is another interesting detail here: the K600 Rhino is based on the South Korean K1 tank, which is essentially a local copy of the American M1 Abrams armored personnel carrier, but with elements of its own localization. The Military Balance 2023 does not indicate how many K600 Rhino armored vehicles the South Korean army has.

But instead, the authors of this guide write that the South Korean army currently has a total of 1,500 K1 tanks of various modifications, which form the core of the South Korean tank fleet.