17.09.2024.
Minister Gašić: Ponoš is annoyed by everything that makes the armed forces stronger
Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić has dismissed as untruthful and utterly malicious the statements made by MP Zdravko Ponoš relating to the initiative aimed at the reinstatement of mandatory military service.
- The only thing that can be concluded from the load of nonsense and contradictory statements uttered by Zdravko Ponoš about the necessary features of a good peacetime or wartime army, is that he is against every measure and decision aimed at strengthening our armed forces. Whatever initiative President Vučić launches, whether it relates to politics, economy or defence, the usual “snake oil salesmen” will, in the absence of their own ideas and results, shamelessly and brutally attack, and this is one such example – said Minister Gašić.
According to him, it is absurd for the former chief of the General Staff, during whose term of office the most competent officers were expelled from the armed forces and who allowed the destruction and sale of hundreds of pieces of usable military equipment, to preach about the staffing needs of our units, or even worse – to call on the General Staff to react in the name of the "military profession" and to advocate for his political interests.
- Ponoš refers to state-of-the-art combat systems as “scrap iron”. Fancy that! It is as absurd as his statement saying that our military has no men skilled enough to use those systems. All the modern assets that have recently been acquired, whether domestically produced or imported, are widely used in the Serbian Armed Forces, and there will be more - emphasized the Minister of Defence.
Gašić underscores that the efforts to equip and strengthen the Serbian Armed Forces in general is a process whose only goal is to make our country safer amidst tense international relations. The introduction of mandatory military service, he says, is only one of the measures designed to make our state and society more resistant to challenges and threats to our freedom and independence.
- In his fits of anger towards President Vučić and everything he does, Ponoš speaks about some kind of political indoctrination of soldiers… That is absolute nonsense, as every professional member of the Serbian Armed Forces can confirm. There has never been, nor will there ever be, any politics or political indoctrination in our armed forces. The only thing our conscripts will be indoctrinated in, if one can use that term at all, is in patriotism. In addition to providing them with military training, we will do our best to instil patriotic values in them as a basis for military ethics. That is something we will strive towards and be proud of - concluded Minister of Defence Bratislav Gašić.
