Germany on Monday signed an agreement to station a brigade of around 4,800 soldiers in Lithuania as part of a pledge to bolster NATO’s eastern flank on the border with Russia.
Speaking at a press conference Monday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius dubbed the move “historic” and said that the troops would be combat-ready in 2027.
It marks the first permanent foreign deployment of German troops since WWII and comes as NATO has sought to reinforce its defenses in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“The eastern flank has now moved to the east, and it’s the duty of Germany to protect it,” Pistorius said, in comments reported by Reuters. “The speed of the project clearly shows that Germany understood the new security reality.”
“We should expect not only good scenarios, but also the very worst scenarios. So we must be ready … Russia remains the main threat to us and NATO”, Lithuania’s Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas added, according to Reuters.