- Russian missile targets Odesa during Zelenskyy visit
- Greece criticized for supporting Ukraine
- Greece supplying Ukraine with military aid
On March 6, Russia launched a missile into the Ukrainian port of Odesa, which exploded around 400 meters (1,300 feet) from where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was prepared to tour the city with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Mitsotakis subsequently told reporters that as we were getting into our automobiles, we heard a loud explosion. We were all anxious, especially given that we were in an open area with little cover. It was fierce.
Many Western officials have visited Zelenskyy, but this was the only time there was a credible threat to their lives and safety. Analysts in Athens don’t think it was an accident.
It was a message to Greece, a message to the Russophilic portion of Greek society,” said Konstantinos Filis, a professor of international politics and director of the American College of Greece’s Institute of Global Affairs.
The Russophilic population is rapidly decreasing.
According to Dianeosis, an Athens-based think tank, over 70% of Greeks viewed Russia positively before the full-fledged war in Ukraine. That dropped to 50% after the 2022 invasion and 30% last year.
According to Filis, the Russians are exceedingly unhappy with the Greeks. Greece has consistently expressed its support for Ukraine.
Just three days after the war began, Greece stated that it would give Ukraine two C-130 planeloads of guns, ammo, and grenades. According to Germany’s Bild tabloid, they included 20,000 Kalashnikov rifles captured by Greece in 2013 while en route to Libya, which is under a United Nations arms embargo.
Greece’s initial support for Ukraine prompted the Russian embassy in Athens to urge “very senior politicians” to “come to their senses” and “stop anti-Russian propaganda”.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zacharova described Greece’s decision to send weapons to Ukraine as “deeply mistaken” and “criminal,” warning that “in the end, the weapons will be turned on civilians, including the Greeks,” referring to the 150,000 ethnic Greek Ukrainians who lived primarily in the besieged towns of Mariupol and Odesa.
Officially, Greece has sent Ukraine with an extra 20,000 155mm artillery shells, Stinger missiles, and 40 Soviet-era BMP-1 armoured personnel carriers. It plans to ship four large transformers that convert high-voltage DC generated by power plants to the lower AC voltage required by local distribution grids that service residences.
Odesa, in particular, requires them since seven of the nine transformers that surround the city have been knocked out by Russian strikes as part of the Kremlin’s relentless plan to cripple Ukraine’s defence industry and economy.
Ukraine is also interested in the unused electrical generators from Greece’s defunct coal-fired power plants.
Greece is also a conduit for third-party military supplies.
Its northern port, Alexandroupolis, has a direct rail link to Odesa via Romania or Lviv, Poland. Since establishing a defence cooperation deal with Greece in 2019, the US has built its military logistics pier at the Greek port.
Military weaponry can reach Ukraine within 24 hours of being unloaded at Alexandroupolis. Now that Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait, which connects to the Black Sea, is closed to all military traffic, Alexandroupolis is one of the quickest routes to Ukraine.
“We could offer antiaircraft guns and S-300 air defence systems.”
Russia evoked its shared Orthodoxy with Greece and its help in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire in 1821. However, these cultural and historical affinities are overshadowed by Russian behaviour toward Ukraine, which Greece compares to that of its neighbour Turkey.
Mitsotakis expressed his government’s support for Ukraine in these words in Odesa.
“Greece … has faced belligerence in the past,” stated the minister. “Greece’s participation in European support for Ukraine needs no further explanation.”
Greece has been attempting to persuade Turkey to agree on marine limits in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean by the UN Law of the Sea Treaty, to which Turkey is not a party. Turkey denies that Greece’s islands have a continental shelf and challenges Greek sovereignty over the east Aegean islands.
Analysts said the UN Charter establishes nonbelligerent behavior toward neighbours, and Athens wants to see it applied in Ukraine.
Unofficially, Greece has supplied Ukraine with much more direct military assistance, including self-propelled artillery. Some officials estimate a total worth of $300 million over two years, but that figure might skyrocket.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken advocated more excellent military transfers, promising Greece $200 million in foreign military money in a January letter to Mitsotakis.
“The government is trying to offer things that can be replaced,” a diplomatic source said. “In theory, we could offer antiaircraft guns and S-300 air defence systems.”
Greece has one Russian-made S-300 long-range air defence battery stationed on Crete, and government sources say it has offered to deliver it to Ukraine if the US replaces it with a Patriot missile battery.
Greece and Ukraine are now negotiating a 10-year aid pact similar to ones inked by several other NATO allies.
“Greece wants an agreement … based on military budget surpluses – materials you have to sell or destroy before their use-by date,” a diplomat told Reuters. “We do not want a separate Ukraine budget line.”
Public opinion is divided.
According to a recent survey of 15 European countries conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations, 55% of Greeks, like most Europeans, reject additional defence spending for Ukraine.
However, unlike most Europeans, a similar number of Greeks opposed sending more weaponry to Ukraine.
Although Greece spends more on defence than most NATO members (3.7 percent of its GDP last year), concern for its security prevents it from being more generous.
Nonetheless, Ukraine is asking for more.
Greece is preparing to decommission 32 older F-16 Block-30 fighter jets, upgrade 82 F-16s to Block-70, and acquire 24 fourth-generation Rafale fighters from France.
A US congressional committee has also authorized Greece to purchase up to 40 fifth-generation F-35 multirole jets. Ukraine has made it clear that it wants them.
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According to one estimate, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands may send Ukraine 60 retired F-16s. Ukraine has stated that it needs approximately 150. Greece’s 32 jets would help close the gap.
Greece’s preferred method of transferring those jets is to sell them back to the United States, which would modernize them before passing them on to Kyiv.
Some military specialists are wary of handing over dozens of fighter jets, claiming that the security concerns that drive Greek policy toward Ukraine also limit it.
Unfortunately, due to our neighbours, we need to maintain very robust armed forces.
The sale of 32 F-16s would leave a significant gap in the air force. There must be a quorum of around 200 aircraft, which is impossible with more advanced and expensive fighter jets.
