Germany has announced that it plans to permanently station 4,000 troops in Lithuania, a Baltic country situated between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus, Moscow’s direct zone of influence.
(DW) The troop allocation is part of a strategy to expand the security of the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) territories.
The announcement was made on Monday (26/6) by German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, during a visit to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. He stressed that it will be up to Lithuania to build facilities to accommodate “a robust brigade” first, but declared that Germany is “ready”.
Lithuania has pledged to deliver by 2026 infrastructure needed to base the troops: depots for ammunition, training centers as well as housing for the soldiers and their families.
The German Armed Forces have been present in Lithuania since 2017. The country commands the NATO battalion in the region, with about 1,600 soldiers, half of them German. But only the brigade’s command post, with about 20 German soldiers, is in Rukla.
Germany’s largest military force abroad
Sending German combat troops to the country is a recurring request from the Vilnius government.
The 4,000 soldiers would be a significant support to the Lithuanian forces, which currently have 15,000 members, of whom 3,500 have mandatory conscription, in a country of 2.8 million inhabitants.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Berlin agreed in June 2022 to send a full brigade ready to defend Lithuania in the event of an attack, but resisted the idea of stationing these forces permanently in the region, arguing that troops could be mobilized from German territory.
If the troop deployment takes place, it will be the largest German force outside the country.