SSince last week, the “basic tension” among the Bundeswehr soldiers in Rukla, Lithuania, has been “slightly higher,” says Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Andrä, commander of NATO’s “Enhanced Forward Presence” battalion in Lithuania. Tension and insecurity have grown in Lithuania because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That is why Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier traveled to the country at short notice on Thursday to visit the Bundeswehr soldiers in Rukla together with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.
The visit should be an “expression of solidarity and support,” says Steinmeier. Alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, he reaffirmed that Germany stood firmly on the side of its allies in the East. Both presidents emphasized the importance of unity in the West in this situation. When the two presidents appear in Rukla, there is no sign of the irritation and distrust that Germany’s Russia policy has often provoked in the past, particularly as a result of Steinmeier’s statements. Nauseda thanks Germany for its “historic decision” to help Ukraine with arms, and Steinmeier condemns Putin’s war of aggression in equally unequivocal terms as the Lithuanian.
Visit to Scholz
Only once does it shine through that the harmony was not so complete just a week ago. That is when Nauseda was asked about the fact that he was with the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to see Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) last Saturday – the day before Scholz announced in the Bundestag the change of course in defense policy, with which Germany was preparing for the war in Ukraine reacted.
In the Lithuanian, Polish and Ukrainian media, this trip was understood as an attempt to bring the Germans to reason. A brief smile appears on Nauseda’s face at this point. Then he is silent for a moment before saying: “Western politicians hear what we say because we are destined to have these difficult neighbors.” The undertone is: Until recently, things were different. In recent years, politicians from the Baltic states have often had the feeling that their warnings about the aggressiveness of the Putin regime are not being taken seriously in Western European capitals.
Lithuania now also sees itself exposed to a new danger situation because Russia has moved much closer to it in its preparations for the attack on Ukraine: Russian troops are now probably also stationed permanently in neighboring Belarus, whose border is just over 40 kilometers from the capital Vilnius is away.
After the meetings with Steinmeier in Vilnius and Rukla, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda therefore expressed clear ideas about what his country needs – not just more soldiers, but also a qualitative change. The security of the airspace in the Baltic States, which has been carried out in turn by large countries of the alliance since the NATO accession of the three states in 2004, must be expanded from “air policing” to a fully-fledged air defense system.
The permanent presence of NATO soldiers in the Baltics and Poland, established in 2016, was in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbass. “Lithuanians are happy and grateful that we are here, and we feel that too,” says Lieutenant Colonel Andrä. That was true before the Russian forces invaded all of Ukraine, and it’s even more true now. Even before the attack, the unit had been reinforced by 350 Bundeswehr soldiers in mid-February. Instead of around 1,200 soldiers from six NATO member states, around 1,600 men and women are now serving in Rukla.
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