- Greece’s prime minister said his country cannot give Ukraine its Patriots due to security concerns.
- Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his country needs them to protect its own airspace.
- Ukraine has spent months begging its allies for Patriots to help fend off Russian attacks.
One of Ukraine’s European allies is refusing to hand over Patriot air-defense systems because it says it needs them to protect its own airspace.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece, said in an interview with Greek news outlet Iefimerida that his country would not provide Patriots or S-300 missile systems to Ukraine.
“Greece has supported Ukraine in various ways, including defense means,” he told the outlet on Thursday, per a translation by Ukrainska Pravda.
“However, from the very beginning, we stated that we cannot give out defense systems that are crucial for our deterrence capabilities,” Mitsotakis said.
Athens has supplied Kyiv with thousands of rockets, explosives, infantry vehicles, high-explosive incendiaries, ammunition, and anti-tank rockets since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, per Reuters.
A breakthrough seemed possible last month when the NATO country was reportedly considering sending Ukraine its Russian-made S-300 air defense missiles, if it was able to obtain US-made MIM-104 Patriots, according to Greek media.
An exchange deal with the US to replace either a Patriot system based in Athens or a Soviet-era S-300 system stationed on the island of Crete also looked likely, Greek media reported in recent days, per Politico.
But Mitsotakis seems to pull back on that during Thursday’s interview.
“The air defense systems you mentioned are critical for protecting Greece’s airspace and will not be provided to Ukraine,” he said.
Greece has long been at odds with Turkey, with the two neighbors coming close to military conflict in 1987 and 1996. Both sides have accused the other of violating their airspace in recent years.
Ukraine is desperate for air defenses to help it counter Russian attacks.
Earlier this month, its foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told The Washington Post that his team had identified over 100 Patriot air-defense systems that they believed its allies could spare.
He said they’d identified four European and Asian countries with Patriots that could be immediately sent to Ukraine, without naming the countries.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said earlier this month that Ukraine needs 25 Patriot systems with between six and eight batteries each to protect itself fully.
Ukraine currently has between three and five Patriots, with the exact number and location of their deployment being kept secret.
