VILNIUS: The United States on Monday began deploying a battalion of troops and dozens of tanks to Lithuania for an unprecedented six-month rotation, a move sought by the Baltic EU and NATO state to deter neighboring Russia.
Dozens of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles arrived by railway at the army training area in Pabrade.
Lithuania’s Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis said the deployment of some 500 US troops scheduled to stay through the winter proves that a US military presence on NATO’s eastern flank “is no longer a taboo.”
“First and foremost, it is a message to Lithuania and neighboring NATO states that allies are together with us,” the minister told AFP.
“And it is also a message to Russia that the US is engaged, and it is an additional deterrence element,” he added.
Ben Hodges, the former commander of US Army forces in Europe, said the US deployment was a “manifestation of American commitment to continued deterrence along NATO’s eastern flank,” at the time when US was pulling American troops out of Syria and abandoning its Kurdish allies.
“Nobody, including the Russians, should be confused by the Americans’ commitment to NATO despite what was I think a mistake of pulling out of Syria,” Hodges told AFP via telephone.
Two years ago, NATO deployed a German-led multinational battalion of around 1,000 troops to Lithuania, an EU and NATO nation of 2,8 million people.
The alliance installed similar battalions in Poland and Baltic states Estonia and Latvia as tripwires against possible Russian adventurism in the region after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The entire region had been dominated by the Soviet Union for more than 40 years after World War II.
US moves troops, tanks into Lithuania in message to Russia
US moves troops, tanks into Lithuania in message to Russia
- Dozens of Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles arrived by railway at the army training area in Pabrade
- The alliance has previously installed similar battalions in Poland and Baltic states Estonia and Latvia as tripwires against possible Russian adventurism in the region
Trump threatens military operation against Colombia, after Venezuela raid
- Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, in an apparent reference to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened military action against Colombia’s government, telling reporters that such an operation “sounds good to me.”
“Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, in an apparent reference to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
Asked directly whether the US would pursue a military operation against the country, Trump answered, “It sounds good to me.”
The comments came after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an audacious raid and whisked him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.
