Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 7/3/2025; Author: Amar Karađuz
The web portals have shared information from Greek media that Donald Trump is closing a key military base in the Greek city of Alexandroupolis. The information is not accurate.
On February 24, 2025, the web portal Sputnik Serbia published an article, in which it shared information from the Greek newspaper Dimokratia that U.S. President Donald Trump had decided to close a military base in Greece that was used for delivering weapons to Ukraine.
Media: Trump to shut down military base in Greece used for weapons deliveries to Ukraine
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, will close the base in Alexandroupolis, Greece, which is used for delivering weapons and equipment to Ukraine and Eastern Europe, writes the newspaper “Dimokratia”.
According to Dimokratia, as reported by Sputnik, Donald Trump plans to fulfil a joint request from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and order a review of the sustainability and necessity of further operation of the military base in Alexandroupolis. This base was previously granted to the U.S. by the Greek government during President Joe Biden’s administration for the transportation of troops and weapons to Ukraine.
The article states that Trump’s administration will no longer send military equipment and personnel to Kyiv, which could lead to the closure of the base in Alexandroupolis. Dimokratia emphasizes that the base had neutralized Turkey’s monopoly in the Bosphorus Strait and was of strategic importance to Greece in the context of the war in Ukraine and as protection against a potential Turkish threat. Sputnik reports that Dimokratia warns that Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from NATO could lead to the transformation of the Alliance into a purely European military bloc.
In addition to Sputnik, the web portals Vesti-online and Novosti also presented these claims in their headlines and articles, citing another media source. A number of other web portals presented the claims about the closure of the U.S. base in Greece as a fact in their headlines.
For example, the headline of an article published the same day on the web portal Informer states the following:
BREAKING! Trump closes key NATO base in the Balkans: He accepted the request of Putin and another powerful leader!
What are the Facts?
The article from the Athens-based newspaper Dimokratia, which was the source of the claims about the base closure, was published in its edition on February 23, 2025. It claims that Trump is closing the base at the request of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the claims about the closure of a U.S. military base in Greece are unfounded, there is no such base in Alexandroupolis. The fact-checking web portal of AFP has reported on this.
During a joint address by French President Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump in the Oval Office on February 24, 2025, a journalist asked Trump whether the claims about closing the base at the request of the Russian and Turkish presidents were true (archived here). After a brief consultation with an official who was also present at the meeting, the U.S. president responded that “this is not a true story”.
A U.S. Department of Defense official told AFP that the base in Alexandroupolis is not owned by the United States but is a Greek facility that the U.S. military uses for transporting equipment to Europe under a mutual defence agreement.
“U.S. transport personnel may be temporarily deployed to that location to manage the occasional arrivals and departures of equipment, but this is not a U.S. base that the U.S. could shut down”, the official stated. The same information was also obtained by the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
AFP reports that the U.S. and Greece Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement, signed in 1990 and amended in 2019, now includes a clause granting the United States “priority” access to the port of Alexandroupolis for equipment transportation.
In October 2021, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed an amendment to the agreement amid rising tensions between Greece and Turkey. The amendment allowed the U.S. to station troops at Camp Giannoulis in Alexandroupolis, but it was specified that the facility would remain under the ownership of the Greek Armed Forces, according to AFP.
According to a 2022 report by The New York Times, after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the port in this Greek city near the Turkish border became a central hub from which the Pentagon supplied its forces in Eastern Europe with military equipment. The increased U.S. presence in that part of Europe was intended to deter Russian aggression rather than to supply Ukraine with weapons.
U.S. officials have stated that the equipment is intended exclusively for U.S. military units stationed in Eastern and Northern Europe, not for Ukraine.
Therefore, the claims about Trump closing a U.S. or NATO base in Greece are unfounded since the facility in Alexandroupolis is not a U.S. base, meaning Trump could not have shut it down.
Claims about the closure of a U.S. military base in a NATO ally country come at a time of significant changes in U.S. defence policy following Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, as well as announcements of shifts in relations with European allies. According to AFP, the U.S. president has launched a major Pentagon reform, replacing high-ranking officers and reshaping the military, which could lead to changes in long-standing alliances with Europe.
Trump also surprised both Ukrainian and European leaders by agreeing to begin peace talks with Russia and stating that he wants Kyiv to repay billions of dollars in aid that the U.S. had provided. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned NATO allies that America’s military presence on the continent “may not last forever”.
Therefore, we rate the claim that Donald Trump is closing a U.S. military base in Greece as disinformation. Publications stating that media outlets reported on this claim are classified as manipulation of facts. While the Greek newspaper did report on the claim, the information is not accurate.
