Greece Develops its First Surveillance Drone Programme in Reaction to Turkey’s Bayraktar
The Greek skies will soon be dominated by the newly launched multipurpose Archytas drone. As geopolitical frictions with Turkey have reached a critical juncture in the Aegean Sea, Greek defence and security officials welcomed the development of the Archytas prototype with great enthusiasm in the face of the threat posed by the Bayraktar TB2 operating in Ukraine’s war. This is nothing new, as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan spares no instant in criticising Greece despite both countries being NATO members. But the past few years have been marked by a surge in territorial clashes and acts of intimidation, as territorial waters have been continuously contested by both sides since the 1970s. Such reasons might explain Greece’s decision to equip itself with a new generation of high-performance combat UAVs.