Against the backdrop of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, on June 7, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda in Vilnius on a gradual expansion of the Bundeswehr's presence on the territory of the Baltic NATO ally. As part of this, on September 3rd, around 100 soldiers from the Panzergrenadierbrigade (PzGrenBrig) 41 “Western Pomerania” set off for Lithuania with around 40 vehicles in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, the location of the brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion 6. From Kiel we took a civilian Lithuanian ferry to Klaipeda and from there by road to the largest location in the middle of the Baltic country in Rukla.
What's special: The PzGrenBrig 41 and its soldiers provide a command element, namely the advanced command post, which is supposed to be permanently present in Lithuania. This brigade command post - the "Forward Command Element" (FCE) -, according to the German commander of the 41st, Brigadier General Christian Nawrat, "is deployed separately from the alliance's 'enhanced Forward Presence' (eFP), which is already in the 11th rotation and led by the army”. The FCE is deployed within the “enhanced vigilance activities” (eVA) decided on March 24th at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
With Russia's breach of international law against neighboring Ukraine, the Atlantic Alliance no longer feels bound to the exclusive rotation principle of its units on the eastern flank. From now on, NATO troops will also be permanently stationed in Eastern Europe.
Source: Federal Government/Bergmann
When Russian soldiers attacked Ukraine from three directions on February 24th, the shock was particularly pronounced in the Baltics. Lithuania in particular is in a geostrategically unfavorable position: in the east, only a narrow Latvian corridor forms a buffer against Russian territory; The Russian vassal state of Belarus borders in the south and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad lies in the west.
While Ukraine is in the disadvantageous position of not being a member of the North Atlantic Alliance, the three Baltic states have been geopolitically covered by the assistance clause of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty since the second eastward expansion of NATO in 2004: any attack on Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania would almost certainly result in the declaration of the alliance. The NATO troops stationed in the Baltics also fulfill the function of a “tripwire” as a self-commitment - just like the Americans and Canadians in Western Europe during the Cold War. This means that in the event of a Russian attack, the troop-sending states would also automatically be at war. NATO's military deterrence strategy is intended to ensure the highest level of credibility.
Gerd Portugall
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