RUKLA: Germany and Nato on Tuesday underscored their commitment to beefing up the defence of eastern Europe’s border with Russia as the first of four new batallions under the North Atlantic alliance’s banner arrived in Lithuania.
In moves agreed last year under former US president Barack Obama, Nato is expanding its presence in the region to levels unprecedented since the Cold War, prompted by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and accusations — denied by Moscow — that it is supporting a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The German-led battle group in Lithuania will be joined this year by a US-led deployment in Poland, British-led troops in Estonia and Canadian-led troops in Latvia. They will add to smaller rotating contingents of US troops.
Doubts about the US commitment to Nato have surfaced since the election of President Donald Trump, who has described Nato allies as “very unfair” for not contributing more financially to the alliance.
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said she felt reassured following a telephone conversation with US Secretary of Defence James Mattis. “After what we discussed, I have no doubt about his deep conviction in the importance of Nato and the commitment of the Americans within Nato to what we have agreed,” she said at a welcoming ceremony at Lithuania’s Rukla military base, 100 kilometres from the Russian border.
Von der Leyen is due to hold her first meeting with Mattis in Washington on Friday.
In a phone call on Sunday with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump agreed to meet alliance leaders in Europe in May.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said the German battalion was arriving “(at) the right place and at the right time,” adding he hoped the troops’ stay would be peaceful. A Nato official said all the Nato forces would participate in a major exercise in eastern Europe in June. A second official said it would include a simulated nuclear attack.
There are no end dates for stay of the new contingents, which will rotate every six months partly to comply with Nato’s 1997 promise to Russia to avoid “permanent stationing of substantial combat forces” in Central and Eastern Europe.
Lithuania has said it will build a fence on the border with Kaliningrad to counter smuggling and hybrid warfare threats, in particular the entry of unmarked Russian military personnel into Nato territory.
Grybauskaite on Tuesday called Kaliningrad’s “aggressive militarisation” and Moscow’s military drills “key threats”.
Kestutis Girnius, who teaches at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius, said that by “placing their own soldiers in the line of fire, Nato countries have given tangible proof of their commitment to Lithuania’s security”.
In recent years, Lithuania has purchased about half a billion euros’ worth of German-made armoured vehicles, artillery and military trucks.
— Reuters
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