Berlin, 8 April 2024 – La Germany sends his soldiers in Lithuania. A troop movement that infuriates Moscow. The 21 German military men and women who left today are the ‘Vorkommando’, i.e. the “preliminary detachment” of an unprecedented brigade which should be operational by 2027 with a permanent presence of approximately 4,800 soldiers and more or less 200 civilian employees of the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces: this was specified by the Dpa agency, reporting that they will initially be hosted in a hotel. The Vorkommando is expected to grow to a company of around 150 soldiers by the fourth quarter of this year which will later be called ‘Panzerbrigade 45’.
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German soldiers traveling to Lithuania (Ansa)
After an official commissioning in 2025, additional forces will begin deploying that same year if Lithuania builds the necessary infrastructure. Lithuania borders Russia’s ally Belarus the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and with Poland along the strategic path ‘Suwalki Corridor’ already identified as potential site of conflict between NATO and Moscow.
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Map: Lithuania and the ‘Suwalki Corridor’
A historic moment for Berlin
The preliminary detachment is made up of specialists from various sectors such as logistics, IT, infrastructure, social service and administration. In December the Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius had signed a programmatic document for the deployment a Vilnius talking about a “historic moment”. The main location (80%) of the brigade’s deployment will be the Rudninkai military training areanear the border with Belarus, and the rest in Rukla, in central Lithuania. The German detachment had been defined at the end of March as “very important” for Lithuania and “proof of Germany’s reliability” by new Lithuanian Defense Minister, Laurynas Kasciunas, recalls the Dpa. Kasciunas had assured that the Lithuanian government will do everything possible to build the necessary infrastructure on schedule. Moreover, 85% of Lithuanian society approves the project and Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte is coordinating an inter-institutional group for its implementation. Germany’s promise to deploy to Lithuania a combat unit with independent capabilities it is “an example for the region”, Kasciunas said.
The press conference with the Lithuanian minister Laurynas Kasciunas (photo Ansa)
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The response to the Russian threat
The Bundeswehr website recalls that, in Lithuania, Germany already leads one of the four battlegroups deployed by NATO in Poland and in the three Baltic states since the beginning of 2017 as part of the ‘Enhanced Forward Presence’ mission (Efp) to respond to the “growing threat from Russia”. The battlegroups “are each made up of over 1,000 soldiers who reinforce the armed forces of the host countries” and the one led by Germany “currently has a strength of approximately 1,700 soldiers”.
The departure of the soldiers (photo Ansa)
Moscow: We will take special measures
Moscow’s reaction was not long in coming. The Kremlin views the planned stationing of German soldiers in Lithuania “negatively” and considers it “the continuation of an escalation of tensions that creates hotbeds of danger” for Russia “at the border” requiring “to take special security measures,” Putin’s spokesman said, Dmitri Peskovtaken from the Interfax agency.
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