The prince met with Chief of Defense Lieutenant General Jonas Vytautas Žukas and the leadership of the Defense Staff and the Lithuanian Armed Forces services and commands, and visited the NATO Force Integration Unit in Vilnius.
“I am grateful to the Kingdom of Denmark for the longstanding efforts to strengthen our Armed Forces and to Danish soldiers – for the shared professional experience,” Žukas was quoted as saying in the ministry’s press release.
“Several decades of military cooperation have given many contacts, and our military friendship has been tested not only in different joint events and exercises but also in joint actions in hotspots,” he said.
Other issues discussed during the meeting included multilateral military cooperation projects involving Lithuanian and Danish soldiers, as well as regional security situation and the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ capabilities and development plans, the ministry said.
“The Iron Wolf Brigade was affiliated to the Danish Division for over a decade for training purposes; this year the lasting cooperation with Denmark was transferred from the Iron Wolf Brigade onto the Motorized Infantry Brigade Griffin,” it said.
Prince Joachim also went to Rukla, in central Lithuania, to meet with with soldiers of the Mechanized Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf and NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group.