ATHENS — The crash-landing in northern Greece of a Soviet-made cargo plane manned by a Ukrainian crew has touched off a diplomatic firestorm in Athens. It has raised the specter that some NATO arms meant to shore up Ukraine in its war against Russia may instead be going to bad actors in the Middle East. 

All eight crew members died when the Antonov An-12 plane, a four-engine turboprop transport aircraft, veered off course after taking off from Serbia and crashed into a field about 25 mile west of Greece’s Kavala International Airport. The AP reported that minutes before, the pilot had told air traffic controllers he had a problem with one engine and he had to make an emergency landing, officials said.  

Locals close to the crash site reported seeing a fireball and hearing explosions for two hours after the crash. Also, “because of a strong smell emanating from the crash site” that the Greek press said authorities feared could be toxic, area residents were only allowed to leave their homes Sunday, the day after the incident. 

The Greek army’s Special Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Unit was called in and on Sunday cleared two paths for fire service forensics experts to inspect the site. As of Monday, officials were warning locals that their fields may not be safe to work in because of the likely presence of explosives.

Had the cargo plane, which according to the BBC was loaded with mortar ammunition as well as landmines, crashed at Kavala itself, the consequences would have been catastrophic. A Greek official who refused to be identified told the leading newspaper Kathimerini on Monday: “The Greek ambassador in Belgrade has been instructed to make a complaint to the Serbian [government] to stress the need for Greek authorities to be notified in advance about the nature of the cargo.” 

Late on Monday, another major newspaper, Ta Nea, reported that a high-ranking official from the Greek foreign ministry made a similar complaint to Ukraine’s ambassador to Greece. 

Serbia’s defense minister, Nebojša Stefanovic, said initially that the plane was transporting almost 11 tons of Serbian-made weapons to Bangladesh, including mortar mines and training mines, the AP reported, but according to the BBC, “there are conflicting reports of what kinds of weapons were on board.” There are also conflicting accounts as to where the weapons were headed. The plane took off from the Serbian city of Nis and according to Ta Nea and multiple reports, had been due to make stopovers in Amman, Jordan, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, before ostensibly continuing to Dhaka.

Yet as the smoke clears, the plot thickens. While diplomatic sources in Greece are hardwired for discretion, the Greek public has been riveted by the incident and few are convinced that Serbia was really selling weapons to distant Bangladesh. Ta Nea noted that Kavala is near the port of Alexandroupolis, which it correctly asserts “plays a vital role in the US military presence in this country.” Fueling the intrigue is that the plane belonged to the Ukrainian company Meridian, which according to its website is “one of the first private airlines in Ukraine” and “closely cooperates with the UN and NATO on the delivery of urgent cargo, including military and dual-use cargo.”

Sources close to the Kremlin are sure that weapons on board the plane were destined for an Iranian-backed terrorist-group based in Lebanon, Hezbollah. One newspaper in particular, Komsomolskaya Pravda, put it bluntly: “Ukrainian plane that crashed in Greece was carrying NLAW weapons for sale to Hezbollah.” If that sounds implausible, it is noteworthy that the newspaper, which is seen as friendly to President Putin, cites a cryptic but separate Telegram channel called Nezygar that claims that “more than a hundred NLAW anti-tank weapons, 55 Stinger surface-to-air missiles and about a hundred Javelin high-explosive anti-tank weapons” were among the cargo that went up in flames. 

According to that remarkably detailed post, the cache was sold by a representative of Ukraine’s military intelligence division to the military wing of Hezbollah and the deal,  amounting to the equivalent of $9 million, “went through a Serbian organized crime group which specializes in weapons smuggling.”

Regardless of whether there is a germ of verity to the Russian claim, it is true that Ukraine is awash with weaponry and Russia has warned on prior occasions that some of the weapons that Washington and London are openly furnishing could actually end up in the Middle East. As the European Union has repeatedly pointed out, Ukraine is as much wracked by corruption as it is ravaged by war. As the Sun reported earlier, President Zelensky has fired the head of the county’s domestic security agency and the state prosecutor general, citing some 651 cases of alleged treason and collaboration with Russia. 

Russian infiltration may be a colossal headache for Mr. Zelensky, particularly as Mr. Putin presses his bet that he can vanquish Ukraine and steps up offensives in the south and east to see his brutal project through, but it likely had no role in the mystery of the weapons-laden Antonov that crashed in Greece. It’s not clear where the original bill of lading is — it may be up in smoke.

There is no denying that Greece, a key member of NATO, is angry despite its outward appearances of measured alarm. If in the weeks to come it emerges that there was any degree of Ukrainian connivance in porting the cargo to verboten quarters, or if it was illicit, the fatal crash could well undercut NATO’s provisioning of weapons to Ukraine at a moment when the country is, by all accounts, in the most dire need of them.