References and gibes about helicopters proved true on Sunday, when Proto Thema revealed that Deputy Defence Minister Nikos Toskas used an … ambulance chopper to fly to the northern Peloponnese coastal city of Aigio (Egio).

Toskas later reacted angrily to the report, claiming that he urgently used the helicopter at the direction of DM Panos Kammenos in order to quickly arrive in Aigio because a group of Russian investors had showed up (unannounced?) and were touring a state-run defence industry in the area.

Aigio lies around 170 kilometres due west of Athens (as the crow flies), a two to two-and-half-hour drive by car, or minister’s sedan in this case.

In a written reaction later circulated by the state-run news agency, Toskas’ office issued this statement: “”I went to Aigio urgently and at the last minute, after consulting with Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, in order to meet a delegation from Russia that was already at the Hellenic Defence Systems plant, to brief them on the company’s capabilities and examine the margins for cooperation, in accordance with the spirit of the government’s growth policy.”

Despite the fact that he’s shown on a video arriving with the heli-vac at the city’s main football pitch, Toskas turned his ire on the news source: “If the reporter had gone to the trouble of asking me why I had to urgently go to Aigio in a helicopter, he might perhaps have gotten the news,” before also insinuating that Proto Thema was substituting for the main opposition PR machine…

Opposition parties later derided the deputy minister’s comments and his use of the pricy helicopter trip to … greet Russian investors.

Here’s the video, by the way: