Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, Greek Defence Minister, will arrive in Kyiv on an official visit on 3 November. 

The Greek President and Defence Minister set off on the evening of Wednesday, 2 November for Poland, where they boarded a train for Kyiv, Skai, a Greek media outlet, reports.

Detailed information about the visit’s itinerary has not been released due to security concerns, but it has been confirmed that they will arrive in Kyiv on the morning of Thursday, 3 November and will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A meeting of the ministers of defence of the two countries will then take place.

Sakellaropoulou is expected to express Greece’s solidarity with and support for the Ukrainian people in their struggle against the Russian occupation.

Another Greek media outlet has reported that Sakellaropoulou’s visit had originally been planned for mid-October but was postponed due to undisclosed circumstances.

The visit is taking place as Greek BMP-1 fighting vehicles are arriving at the front in Ukraine; Germany has agreed to supply Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Greece so that it could hand over its BMP-1 vehicles to Ukraine. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, confirmed that the Greek fighting vehicles started arriving in Ukraine in October.

On 16 October, Greece received the first shipment of the German Marder fighting vehicles; Germany will supply Greece with a total of 40 of them. Meanwhile, Greece will hand over 40 Soviet-style BMP-1 vehicles to Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced this exchange agreement in late May, but it was only finalised in September.