Berlin mulls to send additional soldiers to Lithuania and the two countries are negotiating details of reinforcements, says German defence minister.
Germany is considering deploying
additional troops to Lithuania, Defence Minister Christine
Lambrecht said, as tensions remained high over Russia’s military
build-up near Ukraine.
In an interview with the Funke media group to be published
online on Sunday and in newspapers on Monday, Lambrecht said
Germany was “already making an important contribution in
Lithuania” by leading a NATO battlegroup.
“As a matter of principle, additional troops are available
as reinforcement, and we are in talks with Lithuania at the
moment to find out what exactly would make sense in this
regard,” she said.
Russia has denied planning to invade Ukraine but has tens of
thousands of troops near its neighbour’s borders, prompting the
United States to order about 3,000 extra troops to bolster
NATO’s eastern flank in Poland and Romania.
The first of these US troops arrived on Saturday at
Rzeszow military base in southeastern Poland.
NATO has already deployed four multinational combat units
with some 5,000 troops in total in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia. They were sent there in response to Moscow’s annexation
of the Crimea region from Ukraine in 2014.
These so-called NATO battlegroups, led by the United States,
Germany, Canada and Britain, are meant to stall an attack in the
region and buy time for additional NATO troops to reach the
frontline.
Two US officials said on Saturday that Russia has in place
about 70 percent of the combat power it believes it would need for a
full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Lambrecht again ruled out supplying Kiev with arms, after
Ukraine’s embassy in Germany sent a list with specific requests
to the foreign and defence ministries in Berlin.
The list included missile defence systems, tools for
electronic warfare, night vision goggles, digital radios, radar
stations and military ambulances – equipment which, in part, is
already in short supply within the German forces.
Source: Reuters
Germany, Lithuania in talks for extra troops to boost NATO’s eastern flank
Source: Pinay Pop Showbiz
