Lithuania to Host Military Exercises Involving 20,000 Troops

The large-scale Saber Strike military exercises are commencing in Lithuania and will last until the middle of next week. Approximately 20,000 soldiers, including both Lithuanian military personnel and allied forces, are expected to take part in the manoeuvres, as reported by LRT.

"The intensity of both collective defence exercises and our national drills this spring is very high. According to preliminary estimates, around 20,000 Lithuanian and allied troops will participate in exercises in Lithuania," said Lithuanian Chief of General Staff General Valdemaras Rupšys.

Notably, around 600 American troops and 120 pieces of equipment will be deployed from Poland to participate in Saber Strike exercises. They will conduct joint manoeuvres involving live-fire exercises with units from the Lithuanian Armed Forces' Land Forces and a U.S. battalion stationed in this Baltic country.

Parallel to the Saber Strike exercises, Germany will commence the extensive Grand Quadriga 2024 Bundeswehr exercises next week, lasting until the end of May and involving over 3,000 German soldiers and 200 military vehicles, including Leopard tanks, as well as infantry fighting vehicles Puma and Boxer.

In May, Immediate Response exercises will also take place, during which American and Lithuanian forces will conduct their first live-fire exercises in the Baltic Sea using the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).

All these exercises are part of the Steadfast Defender 24 series, NATO's largest exercises since the Cold War, involving over 90,000 troops from 32 Alliance member countries.

According to Valdemaras Rupšys, while the exercises were planned in advance, they have been adapted in response to changes in the geopolitical situation.

"If you've been following the information previously, the entire Steadfast Defender exercise cycle was smaller in scale than this spring's. This is a response to the current security situation. Such large-scale exercises were not planned three years ago; this was a reaction," said the head of Lithuania's General Staff.

Earlier in April, The Gaze reported that the U.S. Army officially began Steadfast Defender 24 — the largest military exercises in Europe — to practice responding to threats in the context of Russia's war against Ukraine.