Athens wants Kyiv drones off its shores

The Ukrainian drone successful Skaramangas.

Greece is astir to nonstop a stern connection to Ukraine that it should withdraw each its drones from the country’s coasts.

This warning does not signify a alteration successful policy, Greek officials say; arsenic it has since the start of the Russian penetration successful February 2022, Greece has steadfastly supported Ukraine connected the ground of the rule of territorial inviolability.

Faced with its nominal state Turkey’s ain territorial claims successful the Aegean Sea, Greece is against the forceful alteration of borders under immoderate circumstances.

After an unmanned surface vehicle (USV), oregon oversea drone, was recovered by fishermen of the western Greek land of Lefkada, it was salvaged and sent to a naval basal adjacent Athens for examination.

Well-informed sources told Kathimerini that the Mamai type USV (trade name: Cossack Mamai), built specifically for kamikaze missions, is conscionable 1 of galore of its type operating successful the Eastern Mediterranean.

A preliminary study connected the incidental and the vehicle inspection by Greece’s Joint Chiefs of Staff has already been submitted to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who will determine however to proceed connected the ground of the findings.

The study makes it wide that the specific vehicle was portion of a wider cognition planned by Kyiv.

These USV’s size – nary bigger than a jet-ski – makes detection astir impossible. The defence experts who examined the drone accidental that it was being transported by a vessel with nary fixed basal and that it has besides been disconnected the seashore of Libya.

The total fig of the Ukrainian drone fleet operating successful the Eastern Mediterranean has not been determined. But its intent was clear. According to the aforesaid authoritative sources, Kyiv had warned Athens that the so-called “shadow fleet,” a sanctions-busting endeavor transporting Russian oil, and different fuels, acold and wide, were a morganatic target to them.

Much has been written astir astatine slightest some of the “shadow fleet” being formerly Greek-owned ships transferred to Russian power and changing names to flight detection. The find of the USV was a jolt of world to Greek authorities, which had not worried astir what they considered a wide and alternatively vague statement by the Ukrainians.

The anticipation of a oversea drone hitting a tanker oregon adjacent a rider vessel by mistake, and the likelihood of large biology harm if the tankers deed still carried their illicit cargo has shaken Athens. A anticipation of a interaction betwixt Mitsotakis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not excluded.