Women volunteers in Greece’s armed forces during a military ceremony. Credit: Screenshot / Hellenic Army General Staff video.
Greece’s armed forces will welcome the first women volunteers for military service this week, marking a significant shift in the country’s defense recruitment policy.
The first female volunteers will report for duty on Thursday as part of the Hellenic Army’s 2026 second conscription intake, which began this week and will continue through June 5. They will train at an army base near Lamia, a city in south-central Greece.
Women in Greece join voluntary military service
Under the new program, women aged 20 to 26 can apply for voluntary military service if they meet the required military fitness standards and have no felony convictions.
They will serve for 12 months, under the same duration, obligations, and conditions that apply to male conscripts in Greece.
The initiative opens a new path for women to take part more directly in national defense. In Greece, military service has traditionally remained compulsory for men, while women have not faced the same obligation.
Same benefits for women volunteers in Greece’s armed forces
Female volunteers can also join the selection process for reserve officer training, under the same criteria that apply to male conscripts.
They will gain access to military hospital services and receive additional points in certain public-sector hiring procedures. The state will also recognize their period of service as professional experience, giving the program potential value beyond the military.
Officials have presented the initiative as both a contribution to national defense and an opportunity for women to gain training, experience, and qualifications that could support their future careers.
Greece expands recruitment amid defense reforms
The launch of voluntary military service for women comes as Greece pushes ahead with broader reforms to modernize the armed forces, improve readiness, and strengthen recruitment and retention.
Ahead of the launch, the Hellenic Army General Staff carried out a public information campaign encouraging women to apply. The campaign described voluntary service as a way for women to contribute to Greece’s defense while gaining educational and professional benefits.
The arrival of the first female volunteers marks an important test for Greece’s new model of military participation, as the country seeks to broaden the pool of potential recruits and adapt its armed forces to changing defense needs.
An armed naval drone was discovered by fishermen off Lefkada on May 7, prompting Greece to issue a formal demarche to Ukraine. Credit: AMNA
Greece has issued a formal diplomatic demarche to Ukraine after fishermen discovered an armed naval drone off the island of Lefkada on May 7. Athens warned that the incident endangered maritime traffic, civilians, the environment, and national security.
Greek Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lana Zochiou said during the regular briefing of diplomatic correspondents that Athens formally raised the issue with Kyiv after authorities found the unmanned surface vessel inside Greek territorial waters.
According to Zochiou, Greece’s protest note stressed that the naval drone posed a serious threat to maritime navigation and could have cost innocent lives. Athens also warned that the presence of an armed unmanned vessel in Greek waters could have caused major environmental damage.
Greece warns against moving war operations to the Mediterranean
The Greek government said the incident raised broader security concerns, as it appeared to bring military activity linked to the war in Ukraine into the Mediterranean, far from the actual battlefield.
“The transfer of war operations to the Mediterranean, at a great distance from the real front of the war, puts our national security at risk and deals a decisive blow to our national economy,” the protest note stated, according to Zochiou.
For Greece, the presence of an armed naval drone in its waters carries particular sensitivity because the country relies heavily on shipping, tourism, fishing, and maritime security. Athens made clear that it would view any expansion of war-related activity into the Mediterranean as a direct threat to Greek interests.
Ukrainian naval drone found off Lefkada island, Greece. Public Video Screenshot
Greece’s demarche to Ukraine says self-defense doesn’t justify drone incident
Greece also told Ukraine that Kyiv’s right to defend itself against Russia cannot justify actions that endanger Greek territory, civilians, or maritime activity.
“The right of Ukraine to self-defense cannot justify such actions,” Athens stated in the diplomatic demarche.
The Greek government strongly objected to the illegal presence of the armed unmanned surface vessel in Greek territorial waters and called on Ukraine to avoid similar actions in the future.
Athens also urged Kyiv to refrain from what it described as the unjustified transfer of military operations to the Mediterranean.
Greek cuisine is based on fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit, grains, legumes, and greens. Credit: Pxhere/Public Domain
Greece offers vegetarians a large variety of highly nutritional, delicious dishes to choose from. Using fresh ingredients, prepared with age-old recipes, Greek cuisine is full of delightful surprises for which your taste buds will be thankful.
Greek cuisine is based on fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit, grains, legumes, and greens—the perfect combination for vegetarians and vegans.
Across Greece, you will find a large variety of wholesome and flavorful but meat-free dishes for your palate to savor. It goes to show that Greek food is not just comprised of souvlaki, moussaka, or roasted lamb on a spit.
Vegetarianism as a practice, the idea of nonviolence to animals, has its roots in Ancient Greece as well as Ancient Indian civilizations. Ancient Greek historian Plutarch could be considered the first outspoken vegetarian in the West, as he believed that it was “immoral” to eat animal flesh.
In his book Morals, Plutarch devoted an entire chapter on meat-eating. Therein, he wrote that since man has access to so many fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts, the fact that he is forcing himself to eat bloody animal flesh while “trying to cover the taste of blood with thousands of spices” is inconceivable.
Appetizers, salads, and dips for vegetarians
Choriatiki is quite a popular Greek salad made with freshly cut thick wedges of tomatoes, cucumber and onion slices, feta cheese, flavorful olives, virgin olive oil, and crushed, dried oregano leaves. It’s the perfect starter that will whet your appetite for the main course.
Dakos salad is a Cretan salad, which contains round, water-dampened barley rusk topped with chopped fresh tomatoes, crumbled feta or myzithra cheese, olive slices, capers, and a sprinkle of dried oregano A useful tip is to allow the juices to soak the rusk for a few minutes.
It is highly recommended that one try the following tempting mezedes (appetizers or side dishes): fried or grilled vegetables or cheese, including such delicacies as fried tomato balls, green vegetable patties, and saganaki cheese (fried feta or hard yellow cheese). Sliced zucchini can be boiled or fried, while zucchini is also used to make delicious patties (mixed with herbs and/or cheese). The sweet-tasting fried slices of eggplant and the rice and herb-stuffed zucchini blossoms are two must-try dishes, mostly served in the summer and autumn.
Accompany your vegetarian appetizers with some great-tasting dips:
Taramosalata: A mousse salad made from fish roe blended with lemon, bread, and olive oil
Melitzanosalata: A puree of grilled or smoked aubergines with olive oil, garlic and vinegar
Tzatziki: The most famous Greek appetizer around, made with creamy Greek yoghurt, grated cucumber and garlic, and finely chopped dill, blended with oil, vinegar and salt.
Skordalia: A vegan dip made with mashed potatoes or bread, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. It usually accompanies fried cod and boiled beets (patzaria in Greek).
Main courses in Greece for vegetarians
Legumes & pulses
Pulses have been an essential part of the Greek diet since antiquity. Yellow split peas, gigantes (large dried white runner beans), broad beans, lentils, black-eyed peas, and chickpeas all hold an important place in the Greek cuisine and are an essential part of the Mediterranean Diet. Pulses are cooked in hot nourishing soups in the winter. Tey are also great in salads mixed with herbs and vegetables in the summer.
Northern Greece yields top quality pulses, as the soil is rich in potassium, an element that makes them more flavorful and contributes to shorter boiling times. Among these are beans from the Lake Prespes area, lentils from Voio, Kozani, yellow split peas from Feneos, Korinthia, and Santorini, lentils from Eglouvi, Lefkada, and chickpeas from Larisa or Grevena. These are all well-known, top quality produce on account of each area’s favorable microclimate.
Ladera (meaning cooked with olive oil)
Olive oil has always been a product precious to Greeks, one that has been considered sacred since ancient times. Ladera dishes are colorful and flavorful. Vegetables are cooked either fresh or dried in the pot at low to medium temperatures so as to best retain their shape and flavor.
Below are some tasty Greek vegetarian dishes for you to try:
peas and okra (stewed with tomatoes)
artichokes (cooked with potatoes, carrots, lots of finely chopped dill, and lemon juice—the “a la polita” dish)
zucchini, potatoes, carrots, bell peppers, eggplant, and onions baked with tomato sauce and spices (a dish called “briam”)
eggplant cooked with tomatoes, onions, garlic, parsley, dill, and spices (a dish called “imam”)
oven-baked stuffed tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and eggplant filled with a mixture made of rice, the flesh of the above vegetables, herbs, and spices (a heavenly dish called “gemista”).
Pies, the vegetarian way in Greece
Pies hold a special place in the country’s cuisine, as they are among the oldest, simplest, and most delicious dishes one can find in Greece. There are so many variations of ”pites,” as they are known in Greek, that it may be nearly impossible to determine precisely how many different kinds of Greek pies there are out there.
Pies are very popular among Greeks, and they come in all sorts of variations: savory, sweet, dressed with phyllo sheet or flaky pastry (called “sfoliata”), round, triangular or coil-shaped with either few ingredients or more elaborate ones. Age-old household management rules point towards the optimum use of seasonal produce, resulting in a large variety of tasty creations. Pies can be served as a main or side dish or as a healthy and tasty snack during the day.
Pie filling variations depend only on the maker’s imagination and the local bounty of nature. Practically everything can be included in a pie: cheese, greens, pasta, rice, trachanas, and vegetables, among other things. Greek ingenuity has led to a large number of pie creations, including cheese pie, spinach pie, leek pie, nettle pie, mushroom pie, onion pie, cabbage pie, potato pie, pasta pie, pumpkin pie, and many more.
Greek Pasta
You can find Greek pasta in many a shape and size. Some types contain milk and eggs. They can be a simple yet very tasty mixture of durum wheat or semolina, water, and salt.
The pasta-making tradition is kept alive mostly by women living in the countryside who usually prepare the pasta and allow it to dry out in the sun during the summer. They also participate in regional cooperatives, producing and selling a large variety of artisan pasta.
The V-BAT can launch from ship decks or small island clearings without a runway. Credit: Shield AI
Greece has signed an agreement to expand its fleet of Shield AI V-BAT unmanned aerial systems for maritime surveillance operations across the Aegean Sea, the American company announced June 2.
The deal deepens an existing partnership that has already seen the Hellenic Army deploy these advanced drones for intelligence and reconnaissance missions.
Concluded between Shield AI and the Hellenic Army, the agreement bolsters Greece’s existing V-BAT fleet. The company says that the agreement will enhance the nation’s capacity to maintain persistent situational awareness over hundreds of islands, remote coastlines, and contested maritime approaches.
Company says drone is ideal for Greece’s needs
The V-BAT can launch from ship decks or small island clearings without a runway, fly for over 12 hours on a single sortie, and operate seamlessly despite aggressive electronic warfare attempts to disrupt its navigation and communications.
“V-BAT is exceptionally well-suited for operations in Greece, where forces operate across dispersed islands, remote coastlines, deep valleys, mountain ranges, and complex maritime environments,” said James Lythgoe, Shield AI’s regional director for Eastern and Southeast Europe. “V-BAT has proven itself in combat operations in Ukraine, including in GPS- and communications-denied environments, and was built for exactly these kinds of operational realities.”
Combat-proven resilience
In Ukraine, the V-BAT has successfully operated amid intense Russian electronic warfare, where GPS signals are actively jammed and drone communications are disrupted. This proven resilience against satellite spoofing and signal jamming ensures the system remains operational against sophisticated adversaries, rather than falling out of the sky.
Classified as a NATO Class I unmanned aircraft (weighing under 330 pounds), the V-BAT acts as a highly tactical asset deployable by ground units and small naval vessels without requiring massive support infrastructure. Its twelve-hour flight endurance allows a single aircraft launched at dawn to maintain continuous coverage through the entire day. This enables crucial “pattern-of-life” analysis to reveal suspicious maritime activity.
By expanding its V-BAT fleet, the Hellenic military strengthens its layered early-warning architecture across the Aegean, giving commanders the vital reaction time needed to respond to maritime intrusions before situations escalate.
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