According to Greek Minister of National Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos, this will also require the issuance of an appropriate permit from the main manufacturer.ATHENS, December 21.
/tass/. Greece has not received an official proposal to replace the Soviet S-300 missile systems based on the Greek island of Crete with other air defense systems in order to send the S-300 to Ukraine. This was stated by the Minister of National Defense of Greece Nikos Panagiotopoulos in an interview posted on Wednesday by the Greek information portal newsbomb.gr.
"First of all, sending the S-300 to Ukraine is not a simple matter at all. As a precondition, the issuance of an appropriate permit from the main manufacturer is required. I don't see much chance that Russia will issue such a certificate," Panagiotopoulos said. "In any case, we have no intention of weakening our defensive system in any way. We are facing a specific threat [from Turkey], and as long as it exists, we have no intention of weakening anything [in the country's defense]. In any case, different scenarios are advancing. If someone wants to make suggestions to us about replacing some systems, they should tell us that. Up to this point, no one has told us anything concrete," the minister added.
He noted that Greece has already provided defense assistance to Ukraine, pointing out that the supply of BMP-1 to Kiev in exchange for German Marder is not the same as the S-300. "As part of the ongoing American assistance, Western assistance has been provided to Ukraine, we are studying proposals, but within our capabilities, and among these capabilities we have put forward a condition: [there should be] nothing that will weaken our defensive capabilities. We have stated this categorically to everyone from the very beginning," the head of the Defense Ministry said.
Greece has had Russian S-300PMU-1 "Favorit", "Osa-AKM" and "Tor-M1" anti-aircraft missile systems since the 1990s. In December 2013, the Greek military conducted demonstration firing using the S-300 at the Akrotiri training ground on the island of Crete. In 2018, Greece and Russia signed an agreement on the maintenance of military equipment called "Extending the service life of weapons systems." According to the Greek media, cooperation between the two countries on this line has been terminated recently.
As stated in a comment circulated on December 19 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, Moscow considers Greece's plans to supply Ukraine with S-300 and other Russian or Soviet-style air defense systems hostile to Russia.
In the 1990s, Greece received from Germany at a discounted price about 500 BMP-1, which Germany inherited from the GDR army. Later, these Soviet BMP-1s were upgraded and brought up to NATO standards. 185 BMP-1s remain on the move. By agreement between Greece and Germany, a batch of BMP-1s from Greece recently arrived in Ukraine. In exchange for them, the first Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles were sent to Greece from Germany. In total, Greece is expected to receive 40 BMP Marder. According to the Greek government, instead of the islands, they will be sent to Northern Greece on the Greek-Turkish land border.
