According to the ministry, the advance command element of the 45th Brigade Lithuania will consist of 20 German soldiers. They will arrive in Vilnius on Monday, 8 April, together with Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, chief of the German Army.
The soldiers accommodated in Vilnius will be responsible for planning the deployment of the brigade and for coordination of military infrastructure requirements. The advance command element will increase in size by the end of the year and will also become responsible for assistance in transferring German troops to Lithuania.
According to Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defence, Germany is committed to deploying a heavy brigade with three manoeuvre battalions and all the necessary enablers, including combat support and supply units.
The brigade will consist of the existing 203rd Tank Battalion from North Rhine-Westphalia and the 122nd Armoured Infantry Battalion from Bavaria. The enhanced forward presence battle group already in Lithuania will be reformed to a multinational battalion becoming an integral part of the brigade.
It is planned that around 5,000 German troops and civilians will be stationed in Lithuania, some of them arriving with their families.
The German troops will serve in Rūdninkai, south of Vilnius and Rukla, central Lithuania. Soldiers with their families will reside in Vilnius and Kaunas. Additional logistics points will also be established in other localities of Lithuania.
Germany committed to station a brigade-sized unit in Lithuania in 2022, amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The agreement was reached in a communique signed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda.
The vast part of the brigade is planned to be transferred to Lithuania by 2026. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that the brigade would reach its full operational capability in 2027.