Lithuanian Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas called for the deployment of troops to the country’s border with Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave, in an October 7 statement.
This request follows an incident that occurred the day before in neighboring Latvia, as well as the overall security situation in the region, in a context of escalating tensions between Russia and NATO over Kaliningrad.
“I asked Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas to deploy units of the Lithuanian Armed Forces to help border guards protect the border with the Kaliningrad region,” Katelynas said in a statement on social media.
The move is a preemptive measure in response to signals that Russia may announce mobilization, he said.
The requested deployment follows two security breaches at the Latvian border on October 6. First, armed guards escorted groups of illegal migrants across the Latvian-Belarusian border. Shortly afterwards, masked individuals crossed the border between Latvia and Belarus again, stealing equipment before leaving.
The Lithuanian minister said there was no reason to panic and the situation at the border was calm.
“The deployment of soldiers is a preventive decision, so that we are prepared and can put an end to similar incidents,” he said.
The move comes a day after the Lithuanian parliament took the first step towards lifting the ban on the deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory.
The measure would repeal Article 137 of the Lithuanian Constitution, which currently prohibits weapons of mass destruction and foreign military bases on Lithuanian territory.
NATO has expanded its presence in the Baltics in recent months, with a German military brigade permanently stationed in Lithuania, as security concerns over Russian provocations have increased in the region.
Kaliningrad, officially part of Russia, is an enclave on the Baltic Sea, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. The region has become a flashpoint between Russia and NATO.
In a warning to NATO in September, Russia said it was “ready to use the full arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, to defend its territory if NATO countries undertake an attempt to isolate the Kaliningrad region from the rest of the country.”
The next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin again invoked the threat of nuclear force in his remarks.
“Can we be sure that this weapon will never be used? Of course not,” Putin said of nuclear weapons in a speech on October 1. “We all know the saying: if a gun is hanging somewhere on the stage at the beginning of a performance, on the wall, it will definitely go off eventually.”
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