The Greek Seaport of Alexandroupoli (AXP)has appeared in the news recently (NYT) (The National Herald). The port lies at the north end of the Aegean Sea, close to the border with Turkey. It is sixty miles from the Bulgarian border (140 miles to the nearest highway border crossing) and 90 miles from the Aegean entrance to the Straits of Bosporus. The port has fishing boats, ferry service to a couple of Greek islands, and one big commercial wharf .
For ten years prior to 2019, a sunken dredge blocked access to part of that wharf. What's interesting is that the U.S. Navy paid to have that dredge raised and removed. That was part of a military cooperation agreement that included "unimpeded access and use" of the port by U.S. forces on 48 hours notice. The U.S. Navy has upgraded shore-side facilities for cargo handling and maintains personnel on site.
The town has 60,000 inhabitants. That doesn't sound small, but when U.S. sailors disembarked during a visit by a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship last May, (following exercises with the Hellenic Navy) local markets quickly ran out of fresh eggs and cigarettes.
U.S. transport ships started landing military vehicles and supplies at AXP last year, bound for NATO members Bulgaria and Romania.
Bulgaria and Romania have seaports of their own, but it appears that the United States felt - three years ago - that it might be handy to have an alternative route to the NATO Black Sea nations, as insurance against Turkish truculence.
Turkey was disagreeable about this port agreement because they oppose any deal that enhances Greek military posture — and because AXP also has plans for an offshore LNG port to begin operation by the end 2023 (good for Europe. Not so good for Turkish pipeline revenue).
But one can imagine that President Erdoğan foresaw that — in the event of conflict in Ukraine — NATO access to the Black Sea region through Greece would diminish Ankara’s diplomatic leverage.
Here’s where it gets really interesting:
Greece is still privatizing infrastructure in the wake of its 2009 debt crisis. The Chinese logistics giant Cosco owns 51% of Greece’s largest port at Piraeus. A majority stake in the second largest port (at Thessaloniki) is owned by “The Kremlin’s man in Greece”, Ivan Savvidis. He is a Greek-Russian oligarch who has served in the Russian Parliament and sits on a foreign relations committee that advises Putin.
Savvidis has made an offer for the port facilities at AXP. Another offer has come from a Greek conglomerate - The Copelouzos Group - which includes the local gas company partner of Russia's Gazprom.
Two American buyers - the BlackSummit Financial Group, and Quintana Infrastructure & Development have also tendered bids, and Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, made a surprise visit to Alexandroupoli last week.
Stay tuned…
I just found a DoD public information video about U.S. activity at AXP. It show a LOT of equipment moving through there in 2021 as part of the elevated NATO rotations (Atlantic Resolve) that have been conducted in Europe since 2014.
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This video shows Blackhawks being towed off a ginormous Ro-Ro ship and then set up for flight. And here’s some B-roll that shows more of the ship’s interior, more vehicles, bomb-sniffing dogs, tugboats at work, etc.