Greece will buy an Israeli missile shield for three billion euros. It will also integrate Patriots, whose missiles Ukraine is requesting

The Israeli Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that it had signed a contract with Greece for air and missile defense worth roughly three billion euros. The contract was signed in Tel Aviv by the director generals of both ministries, Amir Baram for Israel and Ioannis Bouras for Greece. The project is called Achilles Shield, and according to the Israeli side it is the largest arms export deal in the history of Israeli-Greek relations and one of the largest in Israel's history overall. Greek Minister of National Defense Nikos Dendias added that Greece will be the first country in the Union to acquire such a system. Politico Europe ↗ Israeli Ministry of Defense ↗ Digi24 ↗

One day later, European Union defense ministers met in Wicklow, Ireland. According to Euronews, the European Commission was to press Athens and Madrid there to hand over missiles for Patriot systems to Ukraine. Achilles Shield is meant to integrate Greece's Patriots into the new national network. Euronews ↗

Not a New System, but a Network

The package is worth 3.035 billion euros and combines three Israeli systems with different ranges. David's Sling intercepts tactical ballistic and cruise missiles at ranges of 40 to 300 kilometers, Barak MX covers the 35 to 150 kilometer range, and SPYDER deals with low-flying targets, namely aircraft, helicopters, and drones. It also includes multifunction radars and a command center. A separate 26 million euro agreement adds the Drone Dome anti-drone system from the Israeli company Rafael. Al Jazeera ↗ The Independent ↗

The novelty, however, is not the individual system but what will connect them. Achilles Shield is meant to link existing Greek assets, including Patriot batteries and unmanned aircraft, with Israeli defense into a single network. A central AI-powered software system is to evaluate data from all sensors, classify the threat, and propose the most effective and at the same time cheapest means of neutralizing it. The idea is that the military should not have to send an expensive fighter jet after a cheap drone. According to the Greek public broadcaster ERT, the project is to be completed within 35 months. Die Zeit ↗

According to media reports, Athens also pushed for access to the source code of this software in order to retain influence over the electronics and further development of the system. Nineteen Greek companies are to take part in the program with more than 750 million euros, and domestic production capacity with export ambitions is planned. Germany bought the Arrow 3 system from Israel in 2023 and Finland bought David's Sling a year later, but Greece is the first to integrate several Israeli platforms into one national shield. Die Zeit ↗ Digi24 ↗

The Patriots Over Which the Biggest Battle Is Being Fought

The European Commission and the Union's diplomatic service are asking Athens and Madrid for missiles for Patriot systems. Ukraine needs about three hundred of them for the winter, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, deliveries to it are falling, and Russian attacks are intensifying. One Union diplomat described the shortage of missiles as the debate of this summer, and Spain promised Kyiv five PAC-2 missiles already in the spring. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has, according to Euronews, so far resisted the pressure and said that he cannot hand over any of Greece's six Patriot batteries because they are critical for defending the country's own airspace. Euronews ↗

The argument about its own airspace, however, has a weak point. One of the Greek Patriot batteries has been stationed in Saudi Arabia near the city of Yanbu since 2021, where it protects local oil refineries under an agreement to safeguard the kingdom's energy infrastructure. On Thursday, August 27, according to Greek security sources, it launched three missiles against a swarm of drones, in coordination with Saudi air defense. It was the third deployment of the Greek system since the start of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran. TASR ↗

Pressure on European stockpiles is not only coming from Ukraine. According to AP, US forces in Europe have a critically low number of Patriot missiles because of the war against Iran. The issue is not that Washington is asking for Greek batteries, but that the entire European stock of these missiles is thin and everyone is drawing from the same supply. Achilles Shield additionally makes the Greek Patriots a building block of the national network, which gives Athens another reason not to give them up. Hospodárske noviny ↗

Part of the Union Does Not Trade in Israeli Weapons at All

The agreement comes at a time when several Union countries are moving in the opposite direction, and in both directions at that. Slovenia became the first Union country to ban the export, import, and transit of weapons to and from Israel at the end of July 2025. Spain declared an embargo in September 2025, which also bans the export and import of defense material and dual-use goods, and Madrid took the occasion to cancel contracts with the Israeli companies Rafael and Elbit worth hundreds of millions of euros. Government of Slovenia ↗ The Times of Israel ↗

That is precisely what is most visible in parallel with Wicklow. The Commission is to ask two countries, which stand at opposite poles toward the Israeli arms industry, for missiles for Patriot systems. Spain cannot buy Achilles Shield because its own embargo bans the import of Israeli defense material, and it has also canceled contracts with Rafael. Greece is now buying Drone Dome from Rafael.

On Wednesday, foreign ministers of the Union are to meet at the same place in Wicklow to discuss measures against Israeli settlers in the West Bank. According to the Irish server The Journal, a Europe-wide version of the Irish law on occupied territories is under consideration, which would ban imports from Israeli settlements. Ireland and France are to push for a tougher approach, while Germany and some Balkan states are against it. Both meetings are informal, so no decisions will be made there. The Journal ↗ RTÉ ↗

Criticism is also coming from home. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis wrote that Greece's transformation into an Israeli satellite is advancing at a dizzying pace. A Pew Research Center poll from June showed that 76 percent of Greeks do not trust Benjamin Netanyahu's judgment on world affairs, and protests against rapprochement with Israel have already taken place in the country. Al Jazeera ↗ The Independent ↗

No One Named the Target

Turkey was not mentioned by either side. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the two countries share common strategic interests and face common regional challenges at a time when actors with hegemonic ambitions are seeking to expand their influence and undermine stability in the region. Benjamin Netanyahu described the agreement as one of the largest for Israel and as part of an alliance with Greece and Cyprus. Dendias added that technology, ballistic missiles, satellite communications, unmanned systems, and hybrid forms of warfare have long since made previous defense doctrines completely unrealistic. The Independent ↗ Protothema ↗

The context is provided by what happened three weeks earlier. On August 7, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed a mutual defense agreement in Mecca, under which an armed attack on any one of the three is to be considered an attack on all. It brings together the world's largest oil exporter, the second-largest army in NATO, and the only nuclear arsenal in the Muslim world. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed on Monday that the agreement is not directed against any country. Al Jazeera ↗ Naftemporiki ↗

What a Turkish response might look like can be inferred from Cyprus. Nicosia acquired the first batteries of the Barak MX system in December 2024, and when another shipment arrived last September, the Turkish Ministry of Defense warned of dangerous consequences and said that the delivery was upsetting the fragile balance on the island. According to the Middle East Eye website, the system's radar has a range of more than 450 kilometers, so from the area around Paphos it could see as far as southern Turkey. Cyprus Mail ↗ Middle East Eye ↗

Greek-Israeli rapprochement, however, dates back to 2010, when nine people died in an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship heading to Gaza with aid, and a tenth later succumbed to his injuries, after which relations between Ankara and Jerusalem collapsed. El País ↗

But this is not only about Turkey. Austrian security analyst and former defense attaché in Greece Wolfgang Pusztai points out that Greece hosts American naval bases, and these could become a target of Iran in the future. Athens plans to spend 28 billion euros by 2036 on modernizing its armed forces. Israeli arms exports reached more than 19 billion dollars last year, up 30 percent from 2024, and according to a March report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel moved ahead of Britain for the first time to seventh place among the world's arms suppliers. Al Jazeera ↗ The Independent ↗

What Hotinfo Is Watching

Greece handed over missiles for Patriot systems or the entire battery to Ukraine.

The Union's foreign ministers agreed on concrete measures against Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Turkey officially responded to Achilles Shield at government or defense ministry level.

Another country joined the Mecca mutual defense agreement.

The extent of Greece's access to the source code of the control software that Athens requested during negotiations was published.