The ground shakes as German Leopard tanks fire at their targets, drones buzz overhead and Tiger helicopters roar low across the training area.
Less than an hour’s drive from Vilnius, tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and nearly 3,000 soldiers are simulating Lithuania’s defence against a potential Russian attack.
Over the course of roughly six weeks, nearly 2,900 NATO troops, including around 2,300 German Bundeswehr soldiers, trained to defend NATO’s eastern flank during the “Freedom Shield I” exercise.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the prospect of a future attack on NATO territory has become a central concern for Europe.
NATO leaders and allied intelligence assessments have repeatedly warned that Moscow could rebuild its military capabilities over the coming years, reinforcing the urgency of strengthening the Alliance’s eastern flank.
Building deterrence
In an interview with Euronews, Lithuania’s Chief of the Defence Staff and Vice Chief of Defence, Rear Admiral Giedrius Premeneckas, stressed that “we cannot point to a specific date or number of years and expect a Russian attack on Lithuania, the Baltic states or NATO.”
However, he said Lithuania’s military is observing clear efforts by Russia to reconstitute its armed forces, adding that the outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine will determine the speed of the Russian army’s reconstitution.
Therefore “we must be ready all the time”, he said, listing an increase of military spending, improvement on interoperability and investing in firepower.
“Those means will enable our countries to act in deterrence mode,” Premeneckas told Euronews. “Russia never attacks a country that is prepared and strong,” he claimed, explaining that “they’re always looking for weak points, weak parts of the alliance.”
According to the Rear Admiral, security depends on building up military capabilities and “taking this threat seriously.”
To help deter that threat, Germany has taken the unprecedented step of permanently stationing an armoured brigade in Lithuania, close to the border with Belarus. In June 2023, German defence minister Boris Pistorius announced that “Germany is prepared to permanently station a robust brigade in Lithuania.”
The so-called “Lithuania” Brigade is expected to comprise around 5,000 personnel, including approximately 4,800 soldiers.
During a recent visit to Pabradė during “Freedom Shield”, where German troops were training alongside the Lithuanian Armed Forces and NATO’s multinational battlegroup, Pistorius reaffirmed that the deployment remains on schedule, with the brigade expected to reach full operational capability by the end of 2027.
So far, two battalions are scheduled to permanently deploy to Lithuania: the tank battalion 203 from Augustdorf in North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany’s Panzergrenadier Battalion 122, based in Oberviechtach, Bavaria.
A warm welcome
Most of these troops will be stationed in Rūdninkai, around 40 kilometres from Lithuania’s capital Vilnius. The training area’s location carries strategic significance due to its proximity to the Polish border and the so-called Suwałki Gap, which stretches 65 kilometres between Belarus and Kaliningrad.
Military planners have long regarded it as one of the Alliance’s most vulnerable areas. Additionally, the training grounds are stationed merely 15 kilometres from the Belarusian border and the Belarussian training area “Hozhsky.”
Alongside Pistorius, Lithuanian defence minister Robertas Kaunas has repeatedly reiterated the importance of the German troops in Lithuania – a sentiment also emphasised by Rear Admiral Premeneckas.
“In Lithuania, the perception of German deployment is totally positive,” he said, adding that many German soldiers have received positive responses to their presence in Lithuania. Euronews spoke to several German soldiers, who said they had been warmly welcomed by Lithuanians.
Their experiences are personal and should not be taken as representative of public opinion as a whole, though.
“The people feel definitely thankful to Germany, to Bundeswehr for deploying such size unit on permanent basis to Lithuania, and it brings a sense of security, a sense of being part of strongest defensive alliance, being part of big family and not forgotten in such difficult and tense geopolitical situation,” Premeneckas said.
A nation shaped by occupation
In the 20th century, before regaining independence from the Soviet Union, Lithuania endured both Nazi and Soviet occupation. Although some Lithuanians initially viewed the advancing German forces as an end to the first Soviet occupation, Nazi rule quickly gave way to a brutal occupation marked by mass repression, forced labour and the Holocaust. Between 90% and 95% of Lithuania’s Jewish population was murdered – one of the highest in Europe.
Lithuania’s modern security outlook is deeply shaped by its experience under Soviet occupation, though. Annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the country endured two periods of Soviet rule – from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1944 until it regained independence in 1990. During a press conference in 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied Soviet occupation of the Baltics, saying that “in 1939, Germany returned them to us, and these territories joined the Soviet Union. […] We could not possibly have occupied them, because they were already part of the USSR.”
According to the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, around one in three Lithuanian citizens was directly affected by Soviet repression between 1940 and 1958. Tens of thousands were executed or killed, including roughly 20,000 anti-Soviet partisans. More than 130,000 civilians were deported to labour camps and remote settlements in Siberia and the Arctic, where around 28,000 – including many children and elderly people – died. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country over the following decades. Even as Lithuania sought to restore its independence, violence continued: on 13 January 1991, Soviet troops killed 14 civilians during an assault on unarmed demonstrators in Vilnius.
Speaking to Euronews, Rear Admiral Premeneckas agreed that Lithuania did have a “difficult relationship with Germany” adding that Germany had a “difficult relationship” with most of Europe.
“But right now, Germany is an independent democratic country that provides for the security of Europe and in the case of Russia, they still pursue their ideas of imperialism and hegemonic ambitions to take over other territories. It’s a big difference. Historically, a lot of countries were pursuing some colonialism politics or imperial ambitions, but some countries changed and some countries still do the same,” Premeneckas concluded.
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