Germany asks Greece to supply Ukraine with old armored vehicles and promises to compensate
The Greek Minister of National Defense, Nikolaos Panayotopoulos, and the German Minister of Defense, Christine Lambrecht, discussed supplying Ukraine with BMP-1 armored infantry vehicles from Greece, while replacing them with German Marder armored vehicles.
The press service of the Greek Ministry of Defense stated that the phone conversation between the two parties, on Monday, aimed to discuss “further strengthening bilateral defense cooperation and developments in Ukraine”.
The Greek Kathimerini newspaper reported that Washington suggested that Athens give up Russian weapons in favor of Western systems, especially the S300 anti-aircraft missile systems and the Tor-M1 systems.
Athens refused a request to provide Kyiv with these systems, so that Russia maintains a licensing agreement with the end user, under which Greece cannot export these systems to third countries without Moscow’s permission.
The Greek Minister of Defense, Nikolaos Panayotopoulos, announced on December 21 that sending the Russian-made S-300 missile defense system is not an easy matter, because it requires Moscow’s approval.
Panayotopoulos said that Athens hadn’t received an official proposal to replace its S300 air defense systems with US Patriot systems in order to send Russian defense systems to Ukraine.
