TSAMTO, August 25. The decision of the Greek government to decommission reliable and effective Russian air defense systems "Tor-M1" and "Osa-AKM" with their possible further transfer to Ukraine is criminal and adventurous.
This was stated to RIA Novosti by the former First Deputy Minister of National Defense of Greece, a member of the leadership of the People's Unity party, Kostas Isikhos.
The pronews portal.gr, with reference to a top secret document of the Greek parliament accidentally published on the Internet, reported that Greece is terminating the contract with Russia for technical support and maintenance of the Tor-M1 and Osa-AKM anti-aircraft missile systems in service with the Greek army, despite the effectiveness of these systems.
All of them are located on the islands of the Aegean Sea and, although they were purchased about 20 years ago, they remain irreplaceable and are considered reliable. The portal does not exclude that the air defense systems will be sent to Ukraine.
"This decision to abandon specific weapons was made a few days after Zelensky's visit to Greece. In the Mitsotakis-Zelensky agreement signed during the visit in the field of defense, among the specific issues worked out by the heads of both states, there is the issue of increasing the supply of military equipment from Greece to Ukraine," K. said.Hesychos.
"It is known that the old Soviet, as well as Russian weapons, are extremely necessary for Ukrainians, because they do not need training in handling this type of equipment, including the Tor-M1 and Osa air defense systems," he said.
According to the former deputy minister, the air defense systems that are being withdrawn from the islands of the Eastern and Northern Aegean Sea were in the first zone of air defense against any potential threat "from the neighbor" – Turkey.
"Therefore, they are now disappearing as the first and second defense zones. I would say that the actions of the Greek government to move these very important anti-aircraft systems from the first and second zones located opposite the coast of Turkey in case of a possible outbreak of war are extremely sinister and adventurous. This is an exceptionally highly effective air defense system. It is no coincidence that Ukraine, when it is currently negotiating with NATO member countries about the possibility of obtaining equipment, prefers Russian equipment or old Soviet equipment, because it can be immediately used in the field. No training on the part of the Ukrainian army is required," K. said.Hesychos.
According to him, it is not yet clear how to replace Russian anti-aircraft systems.
"It is counterproductive and even criminal to decommission proven, effective anti-aircraft systems, except when the enemy's weapons can overcome them, then, of course, you are thinking about replacing or upgrading them. Since neither of these things happened, and we do not know when in the future and what weapons they will be replaced with, how much more money the Greek people will pay for something like this, it means that what happened is a reckless act on the part of the Greek government," the politician concluded.
Approx. TSAMTO:
A large number of competing systems and countries are represented on the world market of short-range air defense systems.
In particular, these are the Spider mobile air defense system based on Python-5 air-to-air missiles (Israel), FM-90 (China), VL MICA (France), IRIS-T (Germany), T38 Stiletto (Belarus), NASAMS II (Norway) and others .
Russia's leadership with the Pantsir missile defense system and various modifications of the Tor air defense system in this segment is indisputable, because unlike the use by other countries in their low-budget complexes of serial air-to-air missiles or MANPADS, Russia supplies full-fledged high-tech anti-aircraft missile systems. In this regard, it is no coincidence that recently there has been an increased demand for the Tor-2ME air defense system and the Pantsir-S1 air defense system.
