Μake us preferred on Google A multinational joint military exercise involving military assets and units from Greece, Egypt, Cyprus, France and Italy concluded Friday after operations in the wider area of Crete and the Myrtoan Sea, further to the west.
The exercise, code-named “MEDUSA 15/2026”, began Sept. 10 and has been held annually since 2015. The United Arab Emirates, Serbia, Mozambique and Bahrain also participated as observer countries.
The exercise aims to strengthen cooperation and interoperability among the armed forces of participating countries while providing joint operational training. A bilateral Greece-Egypt exercise, “AEGEUS MENA,” was also conducted within the broader MEDUSA exercise, under the coordination of the Hellenic Air Force General Staff.
A Distinguished Visitors Day was held Friday in the Maleme airfield district near the Cretan port city of Chania (Hania), featuring a series of complex operational scenarios involving personnel and assets from the three branches of the Greek armed forces and the special warfare command.
The activities included a military free-fall demonstration jump featuring the flags of participating countries, airborne infiltration by free fall, terminal aircraft guidance by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC), naval and anti-submarine operations and helicopter fast-rope descents.
The exercise also featured a combined amphibious and airborne assault supported by fighter aircraft and attack helicopters, as well as the use of first-person-view (FPV) unmanned aerial vehicles to counter multiple simultaneous threats and the locally-produced “Kentavros” counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS).
The Distinguished Visitors Day was observed from the Hellenic Navy frigate Psara by Chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff Gen. Dimitrios Houpis and his Egyptian counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Fathy Ibrahim Khalifa.
Also attending were the Chief of the General Staff of the Cypriot National Guard, Lt. Gen. Emmanouil Theodorou, and French Rear Adm. Mackara Ouk, deputy commander of the French Mediterranean Naval Forces (Deputy/OPS CECMED), representing the French chief of defense staff.
The Egyptian ambassador to Greece, Mourad Moyrad, and French Ambassador to Greece, Nicolas Kassianidis, also attended.
The top commanders of all three branches of Greece’s armed forces were also present.
The exercise, which has become an established framework for military cooperation among Greece and its regional and European partners, focused this year on combined operations involving land, sea and air forces, including responses to emerging unmanned aerial threats.
