Lithuania wants NATO to prep ‘forward defence’ in Baltics

Lithuania will ask NATO to adopt the principle of forward defence on its eastern flank in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence held a closed meeting, which was also attended by government representatives and President Gitanas Nausėda, to coordinate the steps to be taken in the run-up to the NATO summit in Madrid in late June.

“We want to implement the principle of forward defence in NATO’s entire future architecture on the eastern flank,” Laurynas Kasčiūnas, the committee’s chairman, told BNS after the meeting.

Lithuania’s key objectives include “growing the NATO battalion to a brigade, preparing to host a division, transforming the air policing mission into a defence mission, and strengthening air defence in general”, he said.

The NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Battalion has been deployed in Lithuania since 2017. Around 1,600 allied troops, 1,000 of them German, are currently stationed in the country.