It was in the spring of 2020, after the events in Kastanies Evros, when the Commission, through its representative Ursula von der Leyen, announced a financial assistance to Greece in the amount of 700 million euros to overcome the migration crisis. Of this amount, the lion’s share was taken by Ministry of Defenceand part of the money was directed to the modernization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which took the brunt of border operations.

The program has been described as a “twenty year purchase” for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with a budget of up to 20 million euros. It was implemented by the then Secretary General of the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection, Konstantinos Tsouvalas, who completed his term in early September.

OUR Attica Police Operations Authority (DAEA) for which the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as some other front-line services, were equipped with 22,000 new bulletproof vests, shields, helmets, tear gas, while it was decided to restore approximately 70 APU “cage” buses, because. most of them were purchased in the period 1999-2003. The overall reconstruction of the buses was found to be more profitable than the decision to buy new ones.

By decision of the headquarters, the project was transferred to a private company and began to be implemented in March 2021. However, the results of the process were not as expected. Police sources, who, however, did not want to be named, describe with “K” that the vehicles after the completion of the work and their delivery back to the competent authorities of Attica and Thessaloniki have serious technical damage. In some cases, problems with sealing have been recorded, as a result of which, during rain, water enters the inside of vehicles.

Serious damage

More often than not, the backup engines that power the buses fail and fail when they are not in motion. The problem is evidenced by police reports, which even talk about the ignition of engines with the risk of engulfing all the cells in flames and, of course, endangering the policemen riding in them. In support of their allegations, they refer to an incident that took place in July at the IWA headquarters in Kaysariani, when the bus driver managed to put out the fire in time. The same sources of information emphasize that in some cases, as part of the conversion, parts of the vehicles that did not need to be replaced were replaced, while others that had problems due to age, wear, etc. were left untouched.

“As for the reconstruction of service buses, unfortunately, the results are not as expected. In most service buses, upon returning from the workshop responsible for their reconstruction, and after only a few hours of work, they had to return there, since in many cases the breakdowns followed one after the other, “says, in particular, in the text published in August in the police magazine.