The United States will extend its rotation of a heavy tank battalion in Lithuania, which has seen no reduction in the threat from Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine, Lithuanian officials said on Friday.
Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said the battalion, which has been stationed in the city of Pabrade since 2019, will remain until at least early 2026.
In a statement following a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Brussels, Anusauskas said the decision “realizes one of the incumbent administration’s key objectives: we have a sustained US military presence in Lithuania.”
Since Russia’s attack on February 24, Lithuania has been at the forefront of support for Ukraine, along with neighboring Poland and the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia.
The invasion renewed fears in nations formerly under Moscow’s control. They have hailed recent Ukrainian successes in retaking land.
However, a senior Lithuanian official said Russian forces still had the ability to attack the Baltic states – all members of the NATO alliance, which he said had insufficient forces in the region before the Ukraine war.
“In our estimation, they are not so weakened that they would change our assessment of the threat level to the alliance,” Kestutis Budrys, national security adviser to the Lithuanian president, said of the Russian forces.
Speaking to reporters in Washington after talks with Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Budrys said the likelihood of Russia attacking NATO countries remained remote.
“But the actions we see being carried out in Ukraine and also the attempts to bring even more Belarus into active military offensive against Ukraine should not make us calmer,” he said.
Belarus, whose authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, has allowed Moscow to use its territory for the invasion.
Lukashenko said earlier this week that Belarusian forces would be deployed alongside Russian ones, but did not specify where, insisting the move was defensive.
