Estonia’s Minister of Defence, Hanno Pevkur, has approved a defence plan for 2024-2027 to increase the country’s military capabilities and defence forces, ERR reports. Pevkur said that Estonia would acquire “significantly more and better weapons, ammunition, and equipment,” as well as invest in people and infrastructure. The defence plans include investments in the Ämari Air…
Lithuania expects a plan for deploying a permanent German brigade in Lithuania to be completed by the end of September 2023, Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas announced, LRT reports. He said that a joint task group was now starting work on drawing up the plan. Earlier, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that Germany expected to…
The defence ministers of Canada and Latvia have signed a commitment to increase the size of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence battle group in Latvia to a brigade, LETA reports. Under the plan, Canada will double its number of troops in Latvia. Canada will deploy 2,200 troops, with the ability to add hundreds more as needed,…
Finland’s new defence minister, Antti Häkkänen, visited Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, to meet with his Estonian counterpart, Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur, on 6 July 2023, ERR reported. The two ministers discussed bilateral defence cooperation, regional security, the NATO summit in Vilnius, assistance to Ukraine, and EU defence support. Pevkur said that Finland’s accession to NATO opened…
NATO’s new defence plans for the Baltic region are “very good and detailed,” Latvia’s Defence Minister, Inara Murniece, stated, The Baltic Times reports. The new plans provide for allied defence of the region from day one of a possible attack. Murniece noted that the plans were drawn up 18 months ahead of schedule. However, executing…
The death of a Lithuanian volunteer, Valerijus Polkovnikovas, in Ukraine has caused controversy as it was initially believed to be related to frontline injuries, which later turned out to be untrue, Baltic News Network reports. Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas first expressed condolences and praised the fallen fighter in a social media post but quickly deleted…