Hellenic Air Force

A 47-year-old Russian national who went missing on Thursday in the region of Aghios Mamas, near Nea Moudania in Halkidiki, northern Greece, was found dead on Friday, according to authorities.

His friends reported his disappearance after he did not return from the beach on Thursday.

The Hellenic Air Force has sent a team of technical advisers to Afghanistan in what is seen as tangible proof of Greece's commitment to supporting NATO in all of its operational fronts.

US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt visited the Hellenic Air Force's 110 Combat Wing air base in Larissa, central Greece Thursday and met with US personnel ahead of the temporary deployment there of American MQ-9 drones.

Amid rising tensions between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean, Wednesday's decision by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call snap elections for June 24 intensified concerns for bilateral ties against a backdrop of growing nationalist fervor in Turkey, Ekathimerini reports.

Defense Minister Panos Kammenos Wednesday reacted to a statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry disputing Greece's territorial sovereignty over the eastern Aegean Imia islets saying that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which forged modern Greece and Turkey's borders, "is binding for us and NATO and Turkey."

In a visit to the Aegean island of Kastellorizo on Tuesday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras sent a message of "cooperation... but also determination" to Turkey. But provocations continued with Turkish jets harassing the Chinook helicopter carrying Tsipras and armed forces chief Evangelos Apostolakis. 

One of three young men who took the initiative to place Greek flags on five islets around Fournoi in the southeast Aegean said that the move was intended to pay tribute to Hellenic Air Force Captain Giorgos Baltadoros, who was killed last week when his jet went down off Skyros.

Soldiers fire a salute at the funeral of Hellenic Air Force Captain Giorgos Baltadoros in his native village of Morfovouni in Karditsa, northern Greece. The 34-year-old father of two was killed when his Mirage jet went down near the island of Skyros on Thursday while he was flying in conditions of poor visibility.

The death of a Greek fighter jet pilot on Thursday whose Mirage 2000-5 crashed into the sea north of the central Aegean island of Skyros after returning from a mission to intercept Turkish jets is a grim reminder of the deadly tally incurred by the Hellenic Air Force in the last few decades.

The Greek fighter jet pilot who was killed on Thursday when his plane crashed into the central Aegean, was identified by the Hellenic Air Force as Captain Giorgos Baltadoros.