After more than a year of hesitation, Athens has reportedly decided to give the green light to send Soviet-made S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine.
This is revealed in a recent article by the famous defense page The EurAsian Times, saying that our country is one of the few in NATO that has such a large stockpile of S-300-type systems and missiles.
Are Greek S-300s Leaving for Ukraine?
The EurAsian Times, citing an initial report by Kathimerini, relayed to its international audience the news of the imminent transfer of such systems and missiles from the Greek army to the Ukrainian army. Along with the S-300s, it has been said that the Ukrainians may also receive other weapons, such as the ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft missiles and the Tor and Osa mobile short-range air defense systems that we have also procured from Moscow in the past.
When war broke out on February 22, 2022, Kiev was said to have about 250 S-300P air defense systems (also known as SA-10 Grubmle in NATO). After extensive operations many of them were destroyed or damaged as a result of Russian strikes. Today it has far fewer systems and is also facing a shortage of missiles for its S-300 launchers. A recently leaked Pentagon document suggested that the Ukrainian air force's missile stockpile of S-300 and Buk air defense systems would be completely depleted by early May.
For the first time on December 1, 2022, the then Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, had revealed that Kiev was in discussions with the West about the transfer of additional S-300 systems to the Ukrainian armed forces.
"I am personally discussing with all defense ministers of countries that have S-300 systems in service to negotiate the replenishment of Ukrainian stocks of missiles for these systems," the then defense minister of Kiev had said.
Although Athens had initially agreed to transfer the S-300s to Ukraine in exchange for receiving state-of-the-art Patriot PAC-3 air defense systems from the US, the government appears to have reconsidered shortly after, mainly due to Moscow's warnings of violation of terms of the agreement between Russia and Greece in the field of military-technical cooperation. Essentially, Moscow did not give its permission to transport equipment of Russian origin to Ukraine, that is why we had frozen the deal with the West.
But now it seems that things have changed, especially after the approval for the purchase of F-35 stealth fighters from the US to the Greek Air Force. Be that as it may, we expect a strict response from Russia if the transfer of the Greek S-300s to Ukraine is approved.
