In Lithuania, the five-year anniversary of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group will be held with a ceremony at the Rukla army base and a conference in Vilnius.
The Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence wrote in a press release earlier this week that on February 9, a ceremony will be held at the Lithuanian Great Hetman Jonušas Radvila Training Regiment in Rukla, it will be attended by high-ranking Lithuania‘s, NATO officials, ministers and chiefs of defence of contributing nations.
The ceremony will also be attended by the heads of the Lithuanian institutions, the leadership of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence and the Lithuanian Armed Forces, ambassadors and defence attachés. After congratulating the troops, guests will attend a static display of military equipment deployed by the enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in Rukla. Later on, a monument dedicated to the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion will be unveiled.
During the ceremony the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group will undergo an official rotation and change of command. The 11th multinational rotation will be led by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Andrä. Germany is the largest contributor to the Battle Group, with Belgium, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway also contributing troops.
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The day before the ceremony, on February 8, another event is scheduled to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in Lithuania. The International conference “NATO Enhanced Forward Presence: Vital Element of Deterrence in the Baltic States and Poland”, organised by the Centre for East European Studies in cooperation with the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence, will take place at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.
The decision to deploy NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion-size Battle Groups in the Baltic States and Poland was made by all NATO states at the NATO Summit in Warsaw in July 2016. This highly capable multinational combat capability is a significant and long-term contribution of the Allies to strengthening the security of the region: the Battle Group in Lithuania is continuously and actively training, participating in all major exercises in Lithuania, and thus improving interoperability with the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
Since the beginning of its deployment, around 15,000 soldiers from the nine nations were involved in the Battle Group. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Croatia, Luxembourg and Iceland have sent troops and personnel to Lithuania. One six-month rotation consists of around 1,200 troops, 600 of whom are currently deployed in the Battle Group by Germany. In total, about 6,000 vehicles were transported in the last 5 years. Of these, approximately were 1,500 armoured combat vehicles, according to the press release.
Lithuania: Five-year anniversary of NATO battle group presence to be marked
