OREANDA-NEWS. The deployment in Lithuania for six months for joint exercises with the Lithuanian military of the US Army battalion with more than fifty units of heavy armored vehicles is a measure of strengthening the defense of the Baltic Republic. With such an assessment on the radio station of the Lithuanian radio station on Tuesday, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda made.

"The sole purpose of deploying NATO troops and equipment in Lithuania is to ensure the country's residents are safe from possible interventions", he said. According to the president, Lithuania has never had and has no intentions to threaten any of its neighbors. “Lithuania is a peace-loving country that will never act aggressively towards its neighbors”, Nauseda said.

In October, a battalion of the US Armed Forces was deployed to Lithuania, which included about 500 troops, 30 Abrams tanks and 25 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. The unit is located at a training ground in Pabrad, 15 km from the Belarusian border. On Monday, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that Minsk would be forced to respond to the deployment of troops near the country's borders. According to him, troops have never been so pointedly to the borders of Belarus from across the ocean.