As Minister of Defense of Greece Nikos Panagiotopoulos stated, there is only one condition - the supply of Patriot missiles by the U.S. that would be deployed on the island of Crete to protect the Greek island from Turkey.
The Greeks are ready to transfer to Ukraine not only their S-300 air defense systems but also their Tor-M1 and Osa-AKM air defense systems. The first two systems are of great interest to Ukraine, as repeatedly stated by President Zelensky, but Osa is not needed because the Ukrainians consider this system as really outdated. The Greeks are only open to an exchange of their S-300PMU1 air defense missile systems for the American-made PATRIOT air defense systems, nothing else.
Read more: Nine C17 Planes Full of Bulgarian Weapons for Ukraine, Though Without S-300
The Greeks also want to get rid of their remaining old BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles by sending them to Ukraine, but also only in exchange for German-made Rheinmetall Marder infantry fighting vehicles. In general, no one wants to give anything away for free, despite Zelensky’s statements that the Ukrainian army is closing Europe from the Russian aggressor with its chest.
Currently, the armed forces of Greece are equipped with two batteries of Russian-made air defense missile systems S-300PMU1 NATO code-named SA-20 Gargoyle.
The S-300PMU1 is an export variant of the Russian-made S-300P was developed between 1985 to 1989 and was first shown at the 1992 Moscow Air Show.
The S-300 PMU1 mobile multichannel air defense missile system can defeat modem and future aircraft, strategic cruise missiles, tactical battlefield ballistic missiles, and other targets with a reflective surface up to 0.02 sq. m. flying at speeds up to 2.800 m/s in massive enemy air raids and heavy clutter and severe ECM environments.
Read more: Greece Begins Supplying Infantry Combat Vehicles to Ukraine
