Lithuania: new contingent of US troops arriving

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda announced on X that "the new contingent of US troops is already on its way to Lithuania." “We are grateful to President Donald Trump and the US administration for this decision.” In an interview with the BBC, the country's Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius explained that evacuation plans have been prepared in the face of threats from Russia, but he also said that, in the event of an attack, they will not surrender: "We will react, we will take action".

The announcement

The decision comes after prolonged uncertainty over the US military presence in the region, amid growing speculation that a review of military strategies could lead to the withdrawal of some troops from NATO's eastern flank despite the growing Russian threat. "The US military presence in Lithuania - wrote Nauseda - is an integral part of our collective deterrence and defense, and the commitment of our allies to support us sends a clear message: NATO is ready to defend every inch of its territory". The exact number of troops in the new rotation “has not yet been confirmed, but it will not be less than the previous one,” considering that up to 1,000 US troops have been stationed in Lithuania on rotation since 2019.

The precedents

Last week, NATO fighter pilots shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace. As the BBC reports, military drone incursions have become increasingly frequent in Europe since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. This year, NATO jets have taken off several times to shoot down off-course Ukrainian drones that had crossed into the airspace of other Baltic countries, Estonia and Latvia. Ukraine attributed the presence of the off-course drones to Russian electronic warfare, a technology designed to alter the flight paths of Ukrainian drones.

The British newspaper also explains that Germany, a NATO ally, has committed to permanently stationing a combat brigade ready to intervene in Lithuania in 2023, in response to the changing security situation in Europe. The brigade should be operational by 2027 and count around 5,000 soldiers and civilian employees. However, it reportedly failed to voluntarily recruit enough staff and is now resorting to compulsory assignments to fill some positions. Most of the troops are expected to be deployed in Rūdninkai, near the Suwałki corridor, a strip of territory on the border between Lithuania and Poland that also connects Belarus to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. NATO said there were more than 5,000 troops present in Lithuania as of December last year.