“Eleftheros tipos: Greece will start replacing Russian air defense systems with NATO systems

In the next few weeks Greece will start replacing Russian-made weapons with NATO-made ones, the Eleftheros tipos newspaper wrote.

Since the 1990s Greece has been armed with the S-300 (S-300PMU-1) and Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile systems, the Osa-AKM surface-to-air missile systems (NATO classification SA-8 Gecko Gecko), Kornet-E and Fagot anti-tank missile systems, Zubr hovercrafts and BMP armored infantry fighting vehicles. For several years the U.S. has been pushing Greece to give up Soviet and Russian-made weapons and replace them with American-made ones.

The day before, the newspaper Kathimerini reported on the U.S. proposal to replace the Russian-made weapons, mainly S-300 and Tor-M1 complexes.

“In the coming weeks there will be a gradual liberation from the rather obsolete Russian anti-aircraft systems and their replacement with American ones, which should have been done a long time ago,” Eleftheros tipos writes.
According to her, air defense systems need to be replaced due to the “dramatic events” in Ukraine and the ongoing cold relations between NATO and Russia, which will take years.

She writes that a similar choice has been made in recent years in many NATO member states-Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Bulgaria-that have supplied Russian and Soviet defense systems to Ukraine, and they have largely been replaced by American ones.

“For our country, this replacement concerns the Tor-M1 anti-aircraft systems, as well as the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which has been in Heraklion in Crete for years because it was not possible to deploy it in Cyprus in 1998. It is supposed that because of the sensitivity of the issue, Turkish provocation, etc., the Americans will provide us with Patriot systems or other allies will be able to strengthen us, for example, the French, the Italians and, which is rather difficult, the Israelis,” the newspaper writes.

She notes that for the last 2-3 years NATO has been striving for uniformity and interoperability of weapon systems of the Atlantic Alliance member states and a complete rejection of Russian weapons.
“Turkey does not seem to agree with this position because of the supply and deployment of S-400 systems,” the paper writes.