On September 18-19 Chief of Defence of Lithuania Lieutenant General Jonas Vytautas Žukas conducted a formal visit to Estonia. He met with Chief of Defence of Estonia General Riho Terras at the Defence Staff of Estonia in Tallinn and discussed regional security, military cooperation of the two countries, and expressed delight about the alignment on different strategic regional security aspects.
"I am happy that Lithuania has an ally like Estonia. We have to adhere to a unified position and to send a strong Baltic message to other allies that NATO readiness to provide a coordinated response to threats has to be further improved. The ability to ensure a swift deployment of international forces and air defence capabilities into the region is particularly important," Lithuania's Chief of Defence said.
Chiefs of Defence also discussed other topical issues on the upcoming NATO Military Committee meeting agenda (NATO Chiefs of Defence are members of the NATO Military Committee). Generals praised the progress achieved in NATO in the recent year but also agreed that quite a number of issues concerning security of NATO's eastern flank required immediate solutions.
Lithuanian and Estonian Chiefs of Defence paid significant attention to prospects of military cooperation. They agreed that both countries had to do more in cooperation among navies in order to use resources at hand more efficiently, to find ways of maintaining and developing maritime capabilities jointly.
Chief of Defence of Estonia Gen R. Terras was interested in Lithuania's investments into air defence capabilities and stressed that Baltic cooperation on air defence also meant operational compatibility. He also informed his Lithuanian counterpart that strengthening air defence capabilities was one of priorities of the Estonian Defence Forces and it would be solved as soon as there was budget for it.
During the visit Chief of Defence also laid flowers at the Memorial for Estonia's Freedom Fights, visited Estonia's Special Operations Forces, and the location of deployment of the 1st Infantry Brigade of the Latvian Army and the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group at the Tapa Training Area.
Lithuania and Estonia cooperate in defence area both in the trilateral format of the three Baltic states, and multilaterally in NATO, EU, NB8, and NORDEFCO. Areas of the most intense trilateral cooperation are air policing, airspace surveillance, naval forces, Baltic Defence College activities, military training, capability development, and defence planning.
Photo credit: S. V. Teder (Estonian Defence Forces), Maj R. Senkevičius (Lithuanian Armed Forces)
Spokesperson for the Chief of Defence Lietuvos Major Mindaugas Neimontas
+370 5 278 5091, +370 682 25359, mindaugas.neimontas@mil.lt
