Pronews: Greece terminates contract with Russia on SAM maintenance

Greece intends to terminate the contract with Russia on the maintenance of Russian surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs) "Tor-M1" and "Osa-AKM", Pronews portal reports citing a "top secret document" of the Greek parliament accidentally published on the Internet.

According to the portal, the Tor-M1 and Osa-AKM SAMs have been in service with the Greek army for more than 20 years.

The portal published a screenshot of the document, which contains information about Greece's priority armament programmes. One of the items states: international cooperation (Russia); and maintenance of Tor-M1 and Osa-AKM SAMs. In the column of the status of the contract is written: active, preparing for cancellation.

Pronews journalists came to the conclusion that the Greek government has decided to cancel the maintenance contracts for the systems and they will soon be taken out of service, as the country's stock of spare parts and components will only last for a few months. The amount of the contracts for the coming years was around €102 million, the portal specifies. It also points out that the document was deleted shortly after the "erroneous publication".

According to Pronews, the Greek army and air force has a total of 21 self-propelled Tor-M1 missile systems and 38 self-propelled guided missile systems Osa-AK/AKM of the SHORADS (short-range) class in service. All of them are located on the islands of the Aegean Sea. As the portal specifies, the SAMs were acquired about 20 years ago.