Lithuania to Host Exercise Involving 10,000 Foreign Military Personnel
From June 4th to 21st, Lithuania will host the major international exercise "Baltic Operations 2024" (BALTOPS). These manoeuvres, with approximately 10,000 foreign military personnel participating, aim to enhance maritime security in the region, as reported by LRT.
The objective of the training is to prepare military forces from various countries and strengthen the military response capability to ensure freedom of navigation and security in the Baltic Sea.
It is planned that military ships with crews, additional personnel, and naval forces from the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, France, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Belgium, Portugal, and Italy will participate in the exercises in Lithuania.
"This is the largest training exercise we have ever conducted," said Lithuanian Minister of Defence Laurynas Kasciunas, presenting the corresponding document to allow foreign military personnel on Lithuanian territory to the Seimas.
It should be noted that under Lithuanian law, a special resolution of the parliament is required if the number of military personnel and civilian staff arriving for training in Lithuania exceeds 1,600 individuals. For the BALTOPS exercises, the Lithuanian Seimas adopted the relevant resolution on Tuesday, April 23rd.
Earlier, NATO countries launched the largest training exercise since the Cold War under the name Steadfast Defender 2024, which will continue until the end of May. Similar exercises were last conducted by NATO in 1988, involving 125,000 military personnel. This time, the manoeuvres are taking place in Germany, Poland, and the Baltic countries. The training scenario envisions NATO forces countering Russian aggression against one of the Alliance members.
On April 23rd, it was also announced that Lithuania has transferred a batch of command-and-control armoured vehicles M577 to Ukraine. It is reported that the delivered military equipment has already arrived in Ukraine, although the exact quantity is not disclosed due to security considerations.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Defence also stated that they have already provided Ukraine with assistance totalling 84 million euros this year and aim to maintain this momentum.