The number of professional soldiers in Lithuania is growing too slowly, which is the reason why recruitment in the army is still stagnating, President Gitanas Nauseda says.
Despite Lithuania’s achievements in the area of defense, the number of professional military service personnel has grown by only 6 percent over the past four years, he said.
“Military recruitment is slow and falls short of targets,” Nauseda said as he delivered his 5th State of the Nation Address in the parliament on Tuesday.
“We must focus even more on training the active reserve, increasing the attractiveness of professional military service and improving social guarantees for soldiers and officers,” he said.
The Lithuanian army now has almost 12,000 professional military service personnel, according to the latest data from the Defense Ministry. And there were almost 11,200 professional soldiers in 2020.
The country also has almost 4,000 conscripts per year, 5,400 volunteer soldiers and around 3,300 civilian employees of the national defense system.
Source: BNS
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