Yuriy Kobzar22:25, 05/05/24
Forbes journalists call the situation strange, because these two countries have never been in the socialist bloc.
S-300 is in Greece, S-400 is in Turkey / Photo of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Turkey and Greece stubbornly hold on to their Russian-made anti-aircraft missile systems and refuse to hand them over to Ukraine, despite US persuasion. Forbes writes about it .
Against the background of the escalation in Ukraine, the EU began to put pressure on Greece, calling on it to hand over the S-300 systems familiar to Ukrainians to Kyiv. However, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ruled out any possible transfer of even S-300 missiles.
“Greece is not going to send S-300 or Patriot to Ukraine,” he told local television on April 25.
A little later, Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Güler made a similar statement. His country bought the S-400 “Triumph” air defense system from the Kremlin a few years ago.
“There is no question of providing our S-400 system to any other country,” Güler said on May 2.
As Forbes notes, the Greek S-300s were originally intended for Cyprus, but were sent to Crete in the late 1990s due to threats from Turkey. For a long time, these air defense systems gathered dust, and only in 2013, the Greeks conducted a training launch of missiles from these systems for the first time.
Turkey, on the other hand, has been buying its S-400s directly from Russia, receiving them in 2019 after years of reservations from the US. In the end, Turkey faced sanctions from Washington and was excluded from the queue for the purchase of the new generation of F-35 fighter jets. Ankara still refuses to get rid of Russian air defense systems even in exchange for returning to the F-35 program. Despite this, according to Forbes, Turkey still has not put these S-400s into service with its army and has not conducted its tests.
According to open source data, Greece today has approximately 175 interceptor missiles for its 32 S-300 launchers, while Turkey has more than 120 missiles for its two S-400 divisions.
“The fact that two NATO members who were never members of the Warsaw Pact continue to possess such advanced Russian missiles is truly amazing,” Forbes notes.
(C)UNIAN 2024
Nato can’t order member states around (even though I think that needs to change). But other member nations should make it clear to the refusenicks that this will have consequences for their weapon deliveries in the future. Deny solidwrity and you’ll get no solidqrity in return! That should give those governments a good reason to think twice. 😠
NATO, along with the EU, must be reformed. The unanimous voting system must be dumped for one with a simple majority. It should also be made much easier to kick certain members out of these organizations. Both aspects only encourage rogue behavior when you have shit nuggets as leaders, like Erdogoon and Orb-anus are.
I absolutely agree.
But the whole issue is that the current rules make this reform almost impossible, just like with the UN.
^yellow Muppet
I know. Those two organizations will have a very tough time to get things done with this rule in place. I think they know it already but, as you said, reforms are currently nigh impossible.
Btw:
“Ukraine Plans Counteroffensive in 2025 with $61 Billion US Military Aid, Sullivan Says”
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/32143
🤔
Too early. First let the invaders take Kyiv, then start the counteroffensive with reduced manpower and totally outdated and castrated hardware. 🤐
Please don’t give the White House such ideas, Mike. 😖