Ayesha Farooq, 26, Pakistan's only female war-ready fighter pilot watches an airforce jet about to take off at Mushaf base in Sargodha, north Pakistan June 7, 2013. Farooq, from Punjab province's historic city of Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade – there are five other female fighter pilots, but they have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat. A growing number of women have joined Pakistan's defence forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

A female member of the Ahbab Al-Mustafa Battalion holds a gun as she undergoes military training in Aleppo's Salaheddine district, June 24, 2013. (Photo by Muzaffar Salman/Reuters)

As the world marks International Women's Day on Wednesday, whose theme this year focuses on “women in the changing world of work”, the Israeli military says it is ahead of the curve in providing combat roles for female soldiers. Here: A female Israeli soldier from the Haraam artillery battalion fixes her hair in the women's living quarters at a military base in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights March 1, 2017. (Photo by Nir Elias/Reuters)

A 2S5 Giatsint self- propelled gun fires during tactical exercises held by artillery detachments of the Russian Eastern Military District' s 5th Army at the Sergeyevsky training ground in Primorye Territory, Russia on March 21, 2017. Over 2500 servicemen practice combat skills received in 2017 winter training exercises. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

From stuffed elephants to picnics under power lines, Leipzig-born photographer Frank Herfort coaxes magical, colour-saturated tableaux from intriguing slices of everyday Russian life. Here: A lonely dog watches the mailboxes in a typical Moscow residential block. (Photo by by Frank Herfort/The Guardian)

A Russian air force technician reports to a pilot that a bomber is ready for a combat mission at Hemeimeem air base in Syria Wednesday January 20, 2016. Russian warplanes have flown over 5,700 combat missions since Moscow launched its air campaign in Syria on September 30, 2015. (Photo by Vladimir Isachenkov/AP Photo)

Ivan Plakhuta, 54, the owner of a small workshop manufacturing valenki, Russian traditional footwear, rolls a valenok in the remote Siberian village of Bolshaya Rechka, located in Taiga area in the foothills of the Western Sayan Mountain Ridge in the Yermakovsky district of Krasnoyarsk region, Russia, November 10, 2015. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

A Ukrainian man stands in protest in front of gunmen in unmarked uniforms as they stand guard in Balaklava, on the outskirts of Sevastopol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 1, 2014. (Photo by Andrew Lubimov/AP Photo)