Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has rejected any proposal to send Ukraine Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles, stating that the country needed to replace the systems first.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis stated that Greece would not be sending the Russian-made S-300 anti-air missile system to Ukraine as the country has nothing to replace them with — which would leave them vulnerable — but is looking to work with the United States to replace its stock of S-300 systems with US-made weapons.
The Greek leader noted his refusal to send the weapons to Ukraine during a dinner earlier this week in Athens in honour of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was also attended by several other prominent US officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs Karen Donfried and US ambassador to Greece George Tsounis, Ekathimerini reports.
While Greece has made it clear it will not send anti-air systems the country has been used as a transportation hub for other countries supplying Ukraine with weapons, primarily through the northern city of Alexandroupoli.
The reluctance of Greece to send the anti-air weapons systems comes as NATO head Jens Stoltenberg sounded the alarm over supplies of ammunition, stating that Ukraine was using ammunition far quicker than NATO was able to provide.
“The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions and depleting allied stockpiles,” he said and added, “The current rate of Ukraine´s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defence industries under strain.”
“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics. Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield. Speed will save lives,” Stoltenberg said.
In the last several weeks Ukraine has demanded various kinds of weapons, including fighter jets, which countries like the Netherlands have expressed an openness to.
However, Ukraine has also requested to be supplied with cluster bombs and phosphorous weapons, the first of which has been banned by an international treaty signed in 2008. Ukraine has argued that since it has not signed the 2008 treaty that it should be allowed to receive cluster bombs to use against Russian forces.
Jens Stoltenberg rejected sending the controversial weapons to Ukraine saying, “NATO has neither recommended nor supplied these kinds of weapons,” and added, “We supply artillery and other types of weapons, but not cluster bombs.”