Getty The Greeks are not ‘Western’ Greece and Russia breathe new life into their ancient Eastern alliance.

The imperial giant driving a wedge through European unity and the tiny state drowning in debt are locked in a controversial canoodle. Call it an Orthodox big wet kiss, but modern ties between Greece and Russia are cementing ancient ones.

More than almost any other European country, modern Greece is defined by its geography. A flank state on the southernmost tip of Europe, Greece has been considered a part of the “West” since joining NATO in 1952. But it was not until 2007, when Bulgaria joined NATO and the EU, that it gained a land border with another Western country. Nor is its modern history Western.

Greece has, in fact, a more Asiatic flavor. In 1822, a Greek nobleman called Ioannis Kapodistrias left his post as foreign minister to the Tsar of Russia and retired to Geneva where he set about beginning his life’s work. Kapodistrias, who had made his name at the 1815 Congress of Vienna that brought stability to Europe after Napoleon’s rampage across the continent, now turned his attention to his fiercest passion: Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. It took all the diplomatic skills he had learned in the service of Russia, but by 1827 he had become the first governor, and many believe the founder, of the modern Greek state.

Greece had been a part of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th century until independence in 1830, so it never went through defining Western historical processes like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Other Balkan countries like the Ottoman border states of Slovenia and Croatia have, as former parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, more historical continuity with Europe. This allowed them to adapt to the norms of the EU more easily than Greece, a much older member state.

"This is where the rupture has occurred," says Dimitris Triantaphyllou, Director of the Center for International and European Studies at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. "This is where the doubt comes [for Greeks]: do we belong to the West or are we alone?"

On the flank, Greece has always felt unprotected. Perhaps more importantly, its threat perceptions have been consistently out of line with the majority of NATO members. During the Cold War, explains Triantaphyllou, "Greece had to worry about the north [the USSR] within the framework of its NATO alliance responsibilities; but its biggest threat has always been an expansionist Turkey. So it would pay lip service to its obligations, but whenever there was a crisis with Turkey, such as the latter's 1974 invasion of Cyprus, Greece’s interests were not protected — much to its anger."

All this meant that the Soviet threat was perceived as distant. Greece also had a strong Communist tradition (which it took a civil war to defeat), while Russia’s fresh water ports in the Black Sea bordering the Aegean always ensured contacts between the two countries. As Triantaphyllou points out, Russia was never the threat to Greece that it was to Germany and the US, and the relationship was always kept alive.

Politically intertwined from the beginning, Greece and Russia are also bound together by the centuries-old religious and cultural ties of Orthodox Christianity. Even Russia’s Cyrillic alphabet developed from 9th century Greek-speaking missionaries spreading the faith to their neighbours.

The affinity runs deep. Athens has long been home to intellectuals pushing for closer ties with Russia, with, until recently, little result. But their views, as embodied by the philosopher Christos Yannaras, who a few years ago wrote a piece claiming Putin was one of the greatest leaders of the early 21st century, are now finding an audience more willing to listen.

The financial crisis, and the devastating cuts the International Monetary Fund and the EU forced Greece to implement in exchange for bailout funds, has shaken faith in the existing order of things and shattered the quality of life for the majority of the population. The EU, (embodied in Greek eyes by Germany) bears the brunt of their rage.

Greece’s Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, head of the far-left Syriza party (which came to power in coalition with the hard right Independent Greeks party, in January), now hopes to strengthen commercial links with Moscow, especially in the energy sphere. Greece imports 57 percent of its gas from Russia, while Russia has an interest in the Greek railway network and some of its ports. On April 8, Tsipras flew out to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They achieved little of note beyond promises of future cooperation.

But the trip had a symbolic importance that transcends practical agreement. For Greece’s new government, it was a signal to an EU panicked by Moscow’s aggressive international relations that despite the country’s bankruptcy, no one would push it around. Greece, Tsipras declared, was a “sovereign nation with the indelible right to carry out its own foreign policy.” And well he might. Syriza has so far failed to renegotiate Greece’s bailout terms. It now faces failing to meet further loan payments in May. Unlike debt, symbolism and words come cheap.

While Tsipras is, by the standards of his own party, a moderate, Syriza’s left wing led by Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis – who recently described European sanctions on Russia as ‘unacceptable’ and promised that Greece would help to end them – is pressing for even closer ties with Moscow. Once more the question of national identity is salient.

In 1974, as Greece emerged from dictatorship, its prime minister, Konstantinos Karamalis declared that “Greece belongs to the West.” The country subsequently joined the European Community and this ideal has guided Greek political thought ever since. But this sentiment has always sat uneasily next to another famous dictum of a former president, Christos Sartzetakis: “the Greeks are a nation without brethren.”

"This notion is becoming very relevant now with the crisis in the language of the left,” says Triantaphyllou. ‘“We will not be subjugated to the imperialists” is the mantra. So the already tenuous bonds that exist between Greece and the West are being loosened, and the political establishment is trying to create the conditions to support a possible bailout by Russia. Not for the first time, Greece is trying to create its own identity — if it is kicked out of the Eurozone, it has to come out with a new national idea.

And these are dangerous times for national ideas. Syriza’s emerging form of neo-Hellenism sits alongside a Russia guided by an expansionist form of neo-Eurasianism, which holds that the country is closer to Asia than Europe. Both are countries unsure of their role in the world and beset by the feeling they don’t belong. Both are seeking alternative paths to a 21st century identity.

This is something that Putin understands on a strategic level. After the fall of the USSR in 1991, Russia went into a period of decline that saw its international influence diminish. Putin has spent years trying to reverse this trend and as the London School of Economics’ “Russia in the Balkans” Conference Report has observed, Moscow now seeks to exploit international grievances where it can find them in pursuit of this goal. In particular, it seeks leverage in Europe’s soft underbelly, the Balkans. Greece, enraged at the EU and in desperate financial trouble, is the perfect plum.

Russia has spent considerable sums projecting its soft power into Greece since the financial crisis hit. “The TV station Russia Today [RT] started becoming very popular as a source of news in Greece from 2011,” says Vassilis Petsinis, a Visiting Researcher at the Herder-Institut in Germany. “Lots of RT output resonated suspiciously with the demands of Greece’s ‘indignados.’ The mass demonstrations in 2011 echoed uncannily what RT was broadcasting; the channel gained the hearts and minds of quite a few Greeks.”

“Russia is definitely looking for asymmetric Trojan horses in the region,” Petsinis continues. “Hungary’s Victor Orban government also had an economic crisis and also expressed resistance to EU and IMF recommendations, an opposition very much in line with popular opinion. So the Kremlin is very careful to take advantage of the state of relations with those countries and Brussels, especially tension, for its own benefit.”

And the Kremlin’s style of government — leader-centric with a big state at its heart — resonates across Greece’s political spectrum. The neo-fascist Golden Dawn, which is now Greece’s third largest party also looks at Putin’s Russia as a more acceptable alternative to what it believes are discredited mainstream Western politics.

In May 2014 Golden Dawn members Artemis Mattheopoulos and Eleni Zaroulia headed a delegation that met with Alexander Dugin, a Putin advisor and the intellectual driving force of neo-Eurasianism. The goal of the trip was the “formal approach of Hellenism with Orthodox Russia,” an objective that apparently expressed “the will of the Greek people for an immediate strengthening of bilateral relations” between Russia and Greece.

Russia has more to offer Greece than just soft power and gas. As a permanent member of the Security Council it can play a key role (should it be so inclined) in the continuing problem of Cyprus and several other issues in the Greek national interest. Securing a fraternal veto from Russia in the UN Security Council would be attractive for any state, let alone one with Greece’s problems.

In the interim, Russian planes continue to fly over Baltic airspace, alarming NATO’s top brass. Greece, as a NATO member, has its own veto that could be used in the Russian interest. The quid pro quo is evident.

Following the “introductory” meeting between Tsipras and Putin earlier this month, the two leaders are now reportedly set to sign a €5 billion deal for the construction of the so-called Turkish Stream gas pipeline that is planned to run from Russia through Turkey and Greece. Greece may receive significant cash up front, which may enable it to make its next debt repayments. Russia, meanwhile, gets to continue its energy dominance over Europe.

The fallout of this burgeoning rapprochement could be devastating, for both NATO and for the EU, and with it the European project. Greece is likely to be just the beginning of Russia’s European political assault, and it stands as a stark warning for the dangers facing the continent — and, as many Greeks increasingly fear, for Greece itself.

"Russia is helping to foster serous doubts as to where we belong," concludes Triantaphyllou. "For the first time I am scared — scared that we might go over to the other side."

David Patrikarakos is a journalist and the author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State. Follow him on Twitter @dpatrikarakos.