Ukraine may get Tor-M1 and Osa-AK air defense systems from Greece

The Greek media outlet Pronews has published an interesting article complaining about the "end of Russian weapons systems in the Greek armed forces", as the government has decided to stop funding the support and maintenance of a number of air defense systems.

Defense Express’ analysts say that this refers to the cancellation of contracts to support such anti-aircraft missile systems as Tor and Osa, according to a secret document that was accidentally made public, Pronews reports.

Thus, the publication showed part of a secret document, which shows that the Greek defense ministry decided to cancel the contract worth 102.031 million euros for the maintenance and repair of the Tor-M1 and Osa-AK air defense systems, as well as for the integration of 9S737 Rangir-M command posts.

The journalists also emphasize as for the S-300PMU1 long-range missiles, they were never "lucky" to have a support contract and for this reason they have essentially been “under-functioning for many years”.

And they complain that the total cost of all the systems that Greece has allegedly decided to "throw away" is as much as a billion euros - and that this is the amount that will have to be spent to compensate for the samples that the Greek defense ministry has allegedly abandoned.

How many anti-aircraft missile systems are we talking about?

As for the number of air defense systems that Greece is allegedly "giving up" Greece is currently armed with 21 Tor-M1 air defense systems, as well as 38 Osa-AK and Osa-AKM systems.

And while the publication calls the Osa "old but reliable systems" that are still suitable for first-line defense, the Tor is described as "irreplaceable", which allegedly demonstrated an efficiency of 92 to 98% during exercises (depending on the type of target).

As for the S-300, as of 2022, Greece had two divisions (with 12 launchers) of S-300PMU1 anti-aircraft missile systems deployed on the island of Crete.

Could Greek anti-aircraft missile systems go to Ukraine?

The Greek newspaper complains that the decision to refuse to service dozens of air defense systems, and, apparently, their subsequent decommissioning, is a "purely political" decision. And that it is quite likely that these SAMs may subsequently be shipped to Ukraine via "third countries".

This option is actually quite possible - one can cautiously assume that Greece was planning to secretly abandon these systems, which would then be sent to Ukraine.

The question here is different: if there really was a plan to use these SAMs to strengthen the Ukrainian Armed Forces, what exactly was the impetus for Greece to change its mind. Because it is worth remembering that Greece has always responded with a clear "no" to requests to transfer SAMs to Ukraine.

For example, back in February of this year, Greek Defense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos noted that the country could not weaken its air defense by transferring S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine.

And that the country will keep them in service as long as it needs them, but at the same time, Panagiotopoulos complained about the difficulties of maintaining such systems.

And in December 2022, the Greek Defense Minister claimed that his country could transfer its S-300s to Ukraine if it received its own Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems from the United States, which would be integrated with its air defense system - so it is possible that the "stars have aligned" so that all the prerequisites have been created for the transfer of Greek air defense systems to Ukraine, which will be useful on the battlefield.