Lithuania — Duty in NATO Response Force and the EU Battle Group ended

Units of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces fin­ished half-year’s stand­by in NATO and EU forces
Half year duty of units of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces in NATO Response Force and the EU Bat­tle Group end­ed.

Duty in NATO Response Force and the EU Bat­tle Group end­ed Source: Min­istry of Nation­al Defence Repub­lic of Lithuania.

As of 1 Jan­u­ary 2010 about 600 of Lithuan­ian mil­i­tary per­son­nel, most­ly from the Lithuan­ian Grand Duke Algir­das Mech­a­nised Infantry Bat­tal­ion where assigned for duty in the Land Com­po­nent of the NATO Response Force (NRF-14). Lithuan­ian sol­diers were deployed in the tri­lat­er­al Baltic Bat­tal­ion (BALTBAT).

Anoth­er 130 sol­diers major­i­ty of whom come from King Min­dau­gas Mech­a­nised Infantry Bat­tal­ion per­formed stand­by in the EU Bat­tle Group (BG) togeth­er with troops from Poland, Latvia, Slo­va­kia, and Germany. 

Explo­sive Ord­nance Dis­pos­al Unit of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces will take over duty in NRF from July. The unit based on Juozas Vitkus Engi­neer Bat­tal­ion will be deployed with Pol­ish Explo­sive Ord­nance Dis­pos­al Company. 

Nei­ther NRF nor BG were invoked for ser­vice in crises regions in the first half of 2010. Units of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces assigned to multi­na­tion­al capa­bil­i­ties con­tin­ued com­bat train­ing and drilled com­bat skills in Lithua­nia through­out the duty peri­od. Mil­i­tary per­son­nel of Algir­das Bat­tal­ion also began prepa­ra­tion for deploy­ment to the mis­sion in Ghor province of Afghanistan due this autumn. 

Next year Lithua­nia plans send­ing Capa­bil­i­ty Guard Com­pa­ny, around 120 mem­bers main­ly from the Lithuan­ian Grand Duke Algir­das Mech­a­nised Infantry Bat­tal­ion, to NRF. 

Press release
Min­istry of Nation­al Defence Repub­lic of Lithuania.