Greek-Rusco Military Co-operation

Looks like Russian military sales to Greece is on the increase with another “Zubr” class hover on the way.

http://www.hri.org/news/greek/ana/2002/02-10-01.ana.html#17

Greece signs $63.9 ml arms contract with Russian Rosoboronexport
Athens, 01/10/2002 (ANA)
The Greek Defense Ministry and the Russian Rosoboronexport Company signed a $63.9 million contract for a third hover landing craft of the ”Zubr” class for the Greek Navy, according to an Itar-Tass dispatch from Moscow on Monday.
The craft will be built at the ”Almaz” shipbuilding yards in St. Petersburg and is to be delivered to Greece in mid 2004, the Itar-Tass dispatch noted, quoting a military-diplomatic source.

The cost of the contract includes spare parts, armaments, and funds needed to train the Greek technical personnel.

Russia has delivered to Greece the first two ”Zubr” vessels in 2000-2001, which were named ”Kefalinia” and ”Zakinthos”, which cost $102 million. Greece bought two more vessels from Ukraine for the same price.

The ”Zubr” landing craft are designed to quickly bring a landing party to the needed place and to land it on the enemy coast. It is the world’s largest and speediest hover-type naval landing craft with a back-folding bow ramp.

The vessel has a speed of more than sixty knots. It is able to carry 140 soldiers and 130 tons of cargo, or three tanks, or ten armored personnel carriers. They can be landed on an unequipped coast.

The vessel is armed with two 22-barrel 140 mm ”Ogon” launching systems, as well as four launchers of the ”Igla 1M” missile complex.

In a related development, about 30 Russian enterprises are scheduled to attend the12th international arms exhibition ”Defendory International 2002” to be held in Piraeus on October 1-5.

”Our exhibition is arranged in such a way that reflects the most promising areas of further development of military-technical cooperation between Russia and Greece, as well as the needs of potential customers from other countries”, the press service of the arms trading company Rosoboronexport stressed, according to Itar-Tass on Monday.

Russia will show the newest samples of missiles, artillery systems, anti-tank weapons, including an unparalleled high-precision missile system for land forces Iskander-3, guided weapons foreign-made artillery systems, new types of shells and warheads for shells used in multiple launchers.

Combat, combat-transport and transport helicopters will be represented by the Ka-50, the Mi-35M and the Mi-26. Shipbuilders will show their latest developments based on stealth technologies and equipped with modern anti-ship and anti-aircraft systems.