Greek President and Minister of Defense to visit Ukraine today, transfer BMP-1 — media
3 November, 2022 BMP-1 in service with the Greek army. Photo from open sources Katerina Sakellaropoulou, the President of Greece, will arrive in Kyiv on Thursday, November 3.
She will be accompanied by Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, the Defense Minister, according to European Pravda. The visit will coincide with the transfer of the BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to the Ukrainian military from the Greek army. The President and the Minister of Defense on Wednesday evening visited Poland, from where they left for Kyiv by train.
For security concerns, no information about the visit program has been released, but it has been confirmed that they will travel in Ukraine's capital on Thursday morning, when they will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, a meeting between the Greek Minister of National Defense and his Ukrainian counterpart will take place.
BMP-1 of the Greek army. Photo from open sources
The visit of the Greek delegation comes against the background of the delivery of Greek BMP-1 to Ukraine, which the country replaces with German Marder IFVs.
Greece also plans to provide the Ukrainian side with additional 155mm ammunition. In October, Dmytro Kuleba, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said that the transfer of infantry fighting vehicles had already begun. This was discussed during a joint press conference with Greek Foreign Minister Nikolaos Dendias.
"We highly appreciate the weapons that Greece is transferring to Ukraine so that we can defend our land. It is extremely important that the long-awaited shipment of BMP-1 armored infantry vehicles from Greece to Ukraine has already begun. Soon they will be arriving for our military and will immediately strengthen the fighting capacity and defense capabilities of our country, "Kuleba said.
Greece transfers BMP-1 to Ukraine as part of the so-called "circular exchange" with Germany. On October 17, it was reported that the first Marder IFVs from Germany had already arrived in Greece. In total, Athens will receive 40 German IFVs.
Marder IFV in Greece.
Photo credits: Ptisidiastima
In June, the Greek Minister of Defense announced that up to 30 such IFVs would be transferred to Ukraine, although before that they announced the possibility of transferring significantly more armored vehicles up to 100 IFVs.
Firing with the M2 machine gun mounted on the Greek BMP-1
In particular, it involves BMP-1A1 Ost, an East German (GDR - ed.) modification of the Soviet BMP-1P that after the unification of Germany was sold to Greece. In Greece, they were additionally equipped with a M2 Browning machine gun. The second modification was that the turrets were replaced by a ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun.
In the 1990s, Greece received about 500 such infantry fighting vehicles, some of which were transferred to Egypt, some to Iraq.
Recall that earlier Greece refused to transfer S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine.
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