Greece would be willing to send BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine if their immediate replacement is provided by personnel and combat vehicles of similar capabilities.

In addition to the BMP-1s, there are also requests either directly from Ukraine or from intermediaries such as the United States and Germany for other systems, such as the Harpoon anti-ship missiles, which the Hellenic Navy.

The pressure to grant BMP-1s to Ukraine comes mainly from Berlin. Competent sources said that the German army has solutions that could be used as intermediaries until it becomes possible to permanently reinforce the Greek army with reliable personnel carrier units.

While the possibility of granting BMP-1s, under the aforementioned conditions, is under discussion, Athens is not discussing the other systems, in particular the Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

At the same time, in-depth discussions are taking place in the Ministry of Defense on how the Hellenic Navy and the Armed Forces in general could expand their arsenal with more missile systems, which, due to the geographical characteristics of the sea Aegean, would add a stronger deterrent than expensive investments like the one Ankara made to build the aircraft carrier Anadolu.

Ukraine, however, already has much more economical and quite reliable national anti-ship missiles, such as the Neptune, which gained international fame for sinking the Moskva ship, the flagship of the Russian fleet, in the Black Sea.

However, the changing nature of the war in Ukraine and increasing naval pressure on the wider Mykolaiv region on the outskirts of Odessa and the Danube estuary have increased defensive requirements, as the region is also Kyiv’s last access to the Black Sea.