Most Balkan countries are publicly or secretly sending weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, with Greece and Slovenia leading the way, according to available data.
According to the Balkan Security Network portal, Greece sent military aid to Kiev for the first time at the end of February, and now it has promised to send as many as 122 Soviet infantry fighting vehicles (BVP) BMP-1 with a combat set for cannon and machine gun.
These are obsolete models from the mid-1960s, but they are still usable vehicles and are in the arsenal of both warring parties.
These vehicles have so far been used to secure the Greek islands in the Aegean towards Turkey, which is why the sending of these GDPs is conditioned by the receipt of used GDPs Marder 1A3 or A5, which Germany promised Greece if it realizes its donation plan for Ukraine.
Apart from the GDP, Greece has promised to send other types of weapons in significant quantities.
According to the same source, Greece will send 2,100 73-millimeter cannon grenades, 2,100 122-millimeter cannons, 20,000 AK-47 automatic rifles with 3.2 million bullets, 60 light portable missile systems FIM-92 Stinger, then 17,000 caliber grenades. 155 millimeters and 1,100 RPG-18 anti-tank launchers.
In second place in the region, at least according to what is publicly available, is Slovenia, which plans to send 35 GDPs of Yugoslav production M-80A to Ukraine. It is the same model that is actively used in the Serbian Army and in Croatia.
In a recent interview, Slovenian Defense Minister Marjan Sharec said his country had not donated Yugoslav M-84 tanks to Ukraine, but planned to send 35 M-80A BVPs.
“Slovenia donated infantry weapons, helmets, protective vests … Slovenia gave a lot. Our arsenal of what we can give has emptied,” said Sharec.
Unlike Greece and Slovenia, which publish their intentions to send military aid to Ukraine in the media, other countries generally do so in silence, sharing incomplete information “on a spoonful”.
Thus, the Government of Montenegro recently announced that the proposal of the Ministry of Defense of that country to send “additional military aid” to Ukraine was accepted, although the public has not had information so far that some of the weapons were sent.
Croatia also briefly informed the public, at the very beginning of the war, that it would send protective equipment and infantry weapons to Ukraine. It was clear from the statement of the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković that the aid sent to Ukraine was worth 124 million kunas (about 16.5 million euros), but there were no details about what the shipment contained.
On social networks and channels that follow the war in Ukraine, it is noticeable that Yugoslav M-70 automatic rifles appear on the recordings, and 60-millimeter mortar mines and even M-89 uniforms have been registered since before.
At the very beginning of the war, northern Macedonia responded in the affirmative to Ukraine’s request to provide military assistance, but the country’s leadership declared the details a military secret.
“Since the public was not informed about the type of military aid sent to Ukraine, the expert public speculated that Northern Macedonia sent spare parts for Ukrainian planes and helicopters, which, as in a game of fate, arrived from those countries, all together with the pilots, when the armed rebellion of the Albanians raged in what was then Macedonia, “the portal writes.
It is not known whether and to what extent Romania sent weapons to Ukraine, but it is clear that the country is helping its neighbors’ war efforts by allowing a significant portion of Western aid to reach Kiev via its territory.
The biggest problem regarding the sending of military aid was in Bulgaria, where the government crisis occurred due to that issue. In the end, a compromise was reached, which means that Bulgaria will refrain from sending weapons, but will provide military-technical assistance, ie it will repair damaged Ukrainian weapons or funds that have expired.
The only country in the region that has openly rejected the possibility of interfering militarily in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is Hungary. The Prime Minister of that country, Viktor Orban, stated for the local media that his country is in favor of “financing peace and not war”, and that is why it decided not to supply Ukraine with weapons.