this procurement for the time being and decided to lease the IAI Heron offered by IAI and Rheinmetall instead, initially for the duration of one year, representing a stop-gap measure before a long-term decision on a MALE-system is being made. Greece On 21 April 2022, a well-known Greek military journalist, revealed in an interview that the Hellenic Air Force is discussing the purchase of 3 MQ-9 UCAVs along with the Israeli Heron TPs. Given that the US Air Force has long been operating MQ-9s from Larissa Air Base, Greece has some past experience with it from joint exercises. On 5 July 2022, the Hellenic Parliament approved the acquisition of 3 MQ-9B SeaGuardian UAVs along with 2 ground stations. On 28 July 2022, the Greek Minister of Nation Defence, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, confirmed the acquisition of the 3 UAVs. India In June 2017, the US State Department approved the sale of 22 drones to India, costing around $2–3 billion. As of February 2020, a deal to purchase 30 drones with 10 drones for each of the three Indian armed services, was expected to be signed by the end of the fiscal year. In November 2020, the Indian Navy began operating two leased MQ-9B SeaGuardians. The lease agreement was valid for one year and has been extended subsequently. The drones are deployed at the Naval Air Station Rajali located in Tamil Nadu. and it had logged close to 3,000 hours covering over 14 million square miles of operating area by August 2022. In February 2022, it was reported that Indian Navy had put the deal on the backburner and was instead looking at more indigenous options from the DRDO as well as upgrading its current fleet of IAI Heron drones. On 27 February 2022, PTI reported that the procurement for the 30 armed Predator B drones - 10 each for the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force is in the advanced stage and disputed earlier reports of the deal being put on the backburner with India reportedly providing "good feedback" on the SeaGuardians already on lease. Italy On 1 August 2008, Italy submitted a FMS request through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency for four aircraft, four ground stations and five years of maintenance support, all valued at US$330 million. Italy ordered two more aircraft in November 2009. On 30 May 2012, it was reported that the U.S. planned to sell kits