By Carsten Hoffmann, dpa
Kaunas, Lithuania (dpa) – New German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht arrived in Lithuania on Sunday to visit Budeswehr soldiers deployed in the Baltic country, in her first foreign trip since taking office.
The Social Democrat politician wants to get an overview of the NATO mission there and continue the tradition of meeting deployed Bundeswehr troops in the run-up to Christmas.
Germany provides about half of the 1,200 men and women of the multinational NATO combat unit in Lithuania and leads it as a so-called framework nation.
The NATO troops are housed in a barracks in the town of Rukla, together with Lithuanian forces. The deployment includes soldiers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg.
In response to Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, the Western defence alliance had strengthened the protection of its own eastern flank.
Joint combat units were stationed in the three Baltic states and Poland as part of an “enhanced forward presence.”
They are exchanged every six months, partly because the NATO-Russia Founding Act does not permit the permanent stationing of Allied troops in Eastern Europe.
Lambrecht took up the post of defence minister this month as part of Germany’s new government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
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