“I believe that together we will all regionally show that the best place for the US in Europe is precisely the Eastern European part,” R. Kaunas told reporters on Friday.
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According to him, if the situation in the region to ensure the presence of US troops were compared to a rat race, Lithuania would lead it.
“If we were to call it a rat race, then Lithuania is leading,” the minister assured.
“The letters of thanks from the ambassador, the secretaries, and President Donald Trump (Donaldo Trampo) to our president signal and show that Lithuania has always been and is seen as that ally, partner, who genuinely takes responsibility for its defense, for its security, and invests in its reliability and security not with words, but with real actions and finances,” said R. Kaunas. “Thus, cooperation and partnership with America are truly strong.”
He spoke this way after the rotation ended and more than a thousand American soldiers with equipment began their withdrawal from Lithuania these days.
The soldiers are leaving the country as the US reviews the deployment of its armed forces in Europe. All this means that US troops will not be in Lithuania longer than usual.
R. Kaunas previously said he had assurances from the United States that new American soldiers would replace those completing their rotation.
Meanwhile, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, Deputy Chairman of the Seimas National Security and Defense Committee, stated on Friday that, based on available information, he predicts that troops will remain in Lithuania, but on a smaller scale.
Earlier in May, Washington announced it was halting the deployment of 4,000 troops in Poland, but soon after, US President D. Trump stated that he was deploying 5,000 American soldiers in Poland.
R. Kaunas said he did not want to speculate on the dates when decisions on troop deployment would be made. However, he reiterated that Lithuania could accept even more troops than before – up to 1.5 thousand.
BNS wrote that in recent years, the rotation of American soldiers had been essentially continuous. This means that while some soldiers returned to their original deployment location, units replacing them would already begin to arrive in Lithuania.
Americans regularly deployed battalions of soldiers in Lithuania since 2019. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Washington changed the status of its forces in Lithuania to continuous rotational deployment.
These reinforced battalions usually consisted of a thousand or more soldiers with various combat equipment.
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