Greece has cancelled a $110 million contract with Russia and plans to scrap Soviet-made Osa and Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile systems worth more than $1 billion

The Greek defence forces have Soviet Tor-M1 and Osa surface-to-air missile systems in service. However, Athens is discontinuing their service.

Here's What We Know

We learnt about this quite by accident. Information about the cancellation of the contract with Russia became public because the Greek Parliament mistakenly published the content of a secret document.

The text states that "Tor-M1" and "Osa-AK" will not be serviced and repaired, which implied the participation of Russian specialists. The amount of the cancelled contract for the maintenance of surface-to-air missile systems was almost $110 million.

This probably means that Greece is ready to completely abandon the use of Soviet weapons. Journalists assume that the air defence systems may be delivered to Ukraine with the assistance of third countries.

The Greek Armed Forces have almost 40 Osa surface-to-air missile systems in different modifications. The Osa-AK systems were purchased from Germany along with 924 missiles with a range of up to 10 kilometres in 1992. Six years later, the Balkan country bought a batch of systems from Russia for almost $110 million.

Greece also possesses 21 Tor-M1 air defence systems. These systems were bought from Russia in 1999 for $552 million. The contract also included the delivery of 368 anti-aircraft missiles.

Now Greece will be looking for replacements for the Tor-M1 and Osa. The total cost of these surface-to-air missile systems is now estimated at more than $1 billion.

Source: Pro News