Lithuanian President hopes for even more support from NATO and the U.S.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė announced during the Munich Security Conference that her country expects even broader military assistance from the United States to further strengthen NATO's eastern flank. The President made the statement on Saturday, February 18 during a meeting of the leaders of the three Baltic States with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.
Grybauskaitė stressed at the end of the meeting, in an interview to Agence France-Presse (AFP), that it is important to bear in mind that NATO and U.S. forces are concentrated mainly in Western Europe, rather than on the eastern borders, which in the meantime are the most at risk. She spoke in favor of the need to speed up the decision-making process within the framework of the North Atlantic Alliance.
"Without the support of the American air defense system, we will not be fully protected", said the President of Lithuania in the AFP interview. In her opinion, the decisions adopted at the July summit of NATO are no longer sufficient.
At the NATO summit in Warsaw in July 2016, members decided to expand the military presence of NATO in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, placing a battalion of up to 1,000 soldiers in each of these countries.
As part of this decision, the United States will send a military contingent to Poland in April, whose personnel will consist of approximately 1,000 soldiers and officers. As reported by the Wiesbaden-based U.S. Army headquarters in Europe during the evening of February 18, the new contingent will be placed in the area of Orzysz in northeastern Poland. In Lithuania, NATO has already deployed a battalion under the command of the Bundeswehr.