He underlined at a press conference in Brussels that NATO has boosted its Baltic air policing mission when implementing the decisions made at the Wales summit last year, and the number of training events in Eastern Europe is also growing and rotating allied forces are being deployed.
NATO headquarters will be set up in six Eastern European countries, including Lithuania, Stoltenverg pointed out in response to a BNS question as to whether NATO was looking into the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian chiefs of defence’s request to deploy a brigade in the Baltic states.
“First of all, I’ve seen your request and we will assess all requests and proposals from all allies. Second, what you have seen is that NATO allies have already increased their military presence in eastern part of the Alliance. We will continue to assess the situation and we will do what it takes to protect our allies,” the NATO secretary general said.
Several weeks ago, the chiefs of defence of the three Baltic states asked NATO for a brigade to be deployed in the region, so that a battalion could be based in each country. A NATO brigade usually consists of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers.
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