NATO — EOD Unit of the Lithuanian Armed Forces begins duty in NRF

Explo­sive Ord­nance Dis­pos­al Unit of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces begins duty in NRF
EOD Unit of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces based on Juozas Vitkus Engi­neer Battalion’s mil­i­tary per­son­nel begins duty in the NATO Response Force. Around 30 EOD spe­cial­ists of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces will con­duct a half year of ser­vice in a Pol­ish EOD Com­pa­ny in NRF-15. 

Source: Min­istry of Nation­al Defence Repub­lic of Lithua­nia. Click to enlarge

They were pre­ced­ed by a con­tin­gent of around 600 mil­i­tary per­son­nel, main­ly from the Lithuan­ian Grand Duke Algir­das Mech­a­nised Infantry Bat­tal­ion, that served in NRF-14. They were deployed with the joint Baltic Bat­tal­ion (BALTBAT).

EOD Unit com­mit­ted to NRF will con­duct stand­by in Lithua­nia ready to deploy to a NATO-led multi­na­tion­al oper­a­tion at any time if a deci­sion was made to send in NRF to the cri­sis region. 

On June 30 around 130 troops from King Min­dau­gas Mech­a­nised Infantry Bat­tal­ion fin­ished a half-year rota­tion peri­od in a EU Bat­tle Group (BG) with anoth­er four coun­tries — Poland, Latvia, Slo­va­kia, and Germany. 

No order was issued to deploy NRF or BG in crises regions in the first half of this year. Units of the Lithuan­ian Armed Forces assigned to the multi­na­tion­al forces spent the peri­od under­go­ing com­bat train­ing and drilling com­bat skills in Lithua­nia. Mil­i­tary per­son­nel of Algir­das Bat­tal­ion also began train­ing for ser­vice in Chaghcha­ran Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team to which they will be deployed this autumn. 

After a half of year Lithua­nia is expect­ed to send a Capa­bil­i­ty Guard Com­pa­ny to NRF formed on the basis of Algir­das Battalion’s personnel. 

More infor­ma­tion about the NATO Response Force and the EU Bat­tle Groups, and Lithuania’s engage­ment in their activities: 

Press release
Min­istry of Nation­al Defence Repub­lic of Lithuania.