Around 4,000 soldiers
Pistorius wants to put the Lithuania Brigade into service by 2025
October 11, 2023, 2:06 p.m
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The Baltics are particularly threatened by Russia. Germany wants to help the NATO state Lithuania and announces that it will send a combat brigade. It should be in place by 2025 and permanently ensure security on site. The number of troops is almost that of a small town.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius wants to put the Bundeswehr’s future Lithuania Brigade into service in the Baltic NATO state in 2025. The SPD politician said in Berlin after a meeting of the Defense Committee that there were “very good discussions” with Norway and the Netherlands about whether they wanted to participate in the association with smaller units.
The federal government had announced that it would permanently station 4,000 men and women in the country as a deterrent against Russian aggression that Lithuania feared. It will be a heavy combat brigade of the German Army, which will be set up from elements already existing in Germany and then brought together in Lithuania, the minister said. He named the capital “Vilnius and/or Kaunas” as future German locations. In any case, there should be no further distribution of troops in Lithuania.
He mentioned the goals of practicing together and also being attractive to family members who needed jobs, schools and care options. “The permanent stationing of the German brigade is a major project. It is the largest project in the history of the Bundeswehr. There has never been a stationing of this magnitude before, never on a permanent basis,” said Pistorius.
An incident team should be in Lithuania in the second quarter of next year, and deployment should begin in the fourth quarter. The brigade will formally have its new home there, even before the Lithuanians have built the entire infrastructure. Pistorius: “That doesn’t necessarily mean that a brigade with 3,500 soldiers and everything that goes with it will be visible in Lithuania in 2025. That will definitely not be the case.”