The
Hellenic Navy, seeking to inject fresh capability into its aging fleet through
the induction of BELHARRA-class frigates, appears to have identified an
expedient, economical, and rapid pathway to narrow its gap in the realm of Armed
Unmanned Surface Vehicles (A-USVs). According to reports, Greece has
concluded a “classified” agreement with Ukraine involving the co-development
and co-production of unmanned maritime systems that have already
demonstrated effectiveness in active combat.
News of
this cooperation was received enthusiastically by segments of the Greek
press—particularly those closely following the progress of Türkiye’s expanding
manned/unmanned naval ecosystem.
Concurrently,
Ukraine has conducted long-range strikes—up to roughly 250 nautical miles
from its shoreline—against commercial vessels using Sea Baby Kamikaze USVs
(K-USVs). The publicly released footage once again underscored how potent
these systems can be in the absence of effective countermeasures. While the
legality of these attacks within Türkiye’s maritime jurisdiction warrants
separate scrutiny, their operational implications remain significant.
Returning
to the “classified” Kyiv–Athens agreement: it is stated that Greek companies
will contribute electronic systems, optronics, sensors, and, if required,
warhead components, while Ukraine will provide its expertise in system
development and production-line establishment.
The Greek
government, eager to transform the visit to Kyiv into a political and
technological success story, highlights three principal advantages of this
cooperation:
-
Access
to battle-proven and operationally validated technology,
-
Acceleration
of Greece’s defense-industrial innovation capacity, and
-
The
potential to close the capability gap with Türkiye.
Analytical
Assessment
Greece
seems to have found a direct and accelerated pathway toward the USV capability
it has long sought—often benchmarking Türkiye’s developments in this domain.
Ukraine’s performance in the Black Sea, particularly with MAGURA and Sea
Baby K-USV systems, has indeed emerged as a global case study of asymmetric
maritime warfare.
One of the
most critical factors underpinning this success is Ukraine’s accumulated TTPs
(Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures), refined under intense Russian
electronic warfare pressure. The transfer of such operational know-how could
enable Greece to make a substantial leap in a relatively short period. When
combined with Greece’s existing naval shipbuilding capacity, this cooperation
may help close a key gap in its long-envisioned “manned-unmanned hybrid task
groups.”
If
Ukraine’s experience—where K-USVs have repeatedly forced Russian naval assets
into a defensive posture—can be adapted to the Aegean theatre, it may create a
disruptive shift in the regional balance of maritime power. The Aegean’s
complex topology of islands, straits, and narrow passages makes it a
particularly advantageous environment for K-USV employment.
Adding to
this, potential funding opportunities through European Union defense-support
mechanisms could accelerate the realization of these ambitions.
However,
there is a significant counter-narrative as well. Under normal circumstances,
technology, doctrine, and operational concepts tend to flow from West to
East within NATO. This time, that flow appears reversed. The origin of
Ukraine’s “non-importable” unmanned technologies is highly fragmented—rooted in
domestic wartime innovation supported at various stages by Russia-derived
components, European and U.S. contributions, and Chinese-sourced subsystems.
Another
critical issue involves C4ISR and communication infrastructure. Much of
Ukraine’s success is fundamentally dependent on Starlink connectivity.
The moment Starlink is degraded or denied, both MAGURA and Sea Baby platforms
experience substantial reductions in operational effectiveness. For Greece,
this implies a pressing requirement for an indigenous or sovereign
communications backbone capable of supporting wide-area maritime operations.
Yet, when coastal or ship-based control centers are used as substitutes, Combat
Management System (CMS) integration becomes a significant
obstacle—especially on platforms such as BELHARRA, where integration is both costly
and technically restrictive, and where French willingness to facilitate
such integration could be limited.
Türkiye, by
contrast, benefits from the advantage of employing indigenous CMS architectures
and sovereign communications infrastructures. Consequently, Greece would likely
face a more challenging path in realizing its envisioned seamless integration
of manned–unmanned naval systems.
One of
Greece’s most meaningful recent shifts has been its willingness to transition
from viewing autonomous systems merely as individual platforms to seeing them
as elements of a broader network-enabled system-of-systems—integrating
sensor grids, multi-domain connectivity, and distributed command-and-control
structures. The key question now is how this latest cooperation with Ukraine
will contribute to that long-term transformation.
0 Comments