Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias on Thursday announced that a decision to allow the voluntary conscription of women in Greece’s armed forces will commence next year with a pilot program to create a unit of 100 to 150 volunteers.
Currently, 17% of armed forces personnel in the country are women, but serving as NCOs and officers, a figure that hovers at the global average.
Speaking at an economic conference in Athens, Dendias said the aim of the pilot program is to further “connect women with the armed forces”.
He also expressed a belief, as he said, that “the female population of the country will enthusiastically embrace this initiative,” emphasizing that a special training camp has already been set up for the program.
Drone production in the field
In an unrelated matter, he revisited the ministry’s Agenda 2030 program for modernizing the armed forces and adopting “21st century” battlefield innovations, saying planning, among others, envisions that in few years “every Greek formation will have a mobile drone production unit.”
He also didn’t mince his words in pointing out the reasons for the expanded defense capabilities, saying that fellow NATO member-state-cum rival Turkey “…currently has more than one million drones. However, Greece has the Kentavros (centaur), a most advanced anti-drone system that is specifically designed for Bayraktar,” he said characteristically, in mentioning the well-known Turkish-made UAV.
The Greek-made Kentavros anti-drone system.
