Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that the US military stationed in the republic is designed to protect the country’s inhabitants “from potential interventions,” and not to intimidate Belarus.

“This is the only goal of Lithuania’s defense policy,” Nauseda said on Tuesday at Ziniu radijas radio station. The Lithuanian president assured that his country does not need other lands. According to him, “we do not need to scare our neighbours, because our policy was, is and will be peaceful.”

As reported, earlier in October, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko warned Lithuania that Minsk was able to respond asymmetrically to the deployment of American tanks in this country.

Lukashenko instructed to develop and in the near future to submit to him an action plan for an adequate response to the activity of the American military at the borders of Belarus.

Commenting on this request, the Secretary of State for the Security Council Stanislav Zas said that the units of the American armored division are already arriving in Lithuania. At the same time, the Pabrade polygon was selected as the location, 15 km from the border with Belarus.

The Belarusian Minister of Defense Andrei Ravkov said that Belarus intends to increase the number of troops in the Lithuanian direction.

At the end of September, the Lithuanian Defense Ministry announced the deployment of a tank battalion of the US Army near the border with Belarus. According to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, about 500 US troops arrive in the battalion, as well as heavy equipment – 30 Abrams tanks, 25 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 70 wheeled vehicles.

Defender Europe 2020 (Defender of Europe 2020) will be held from April to May 2020. These large-scale military exercises with the participation of almost 40 thousand troops of the United States and other countries will be held in the spring of 2020 in 10 European countries, including Germany, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia. Most of them will be held in Germany and Poland. Representatives of 18 states will take part in the exercises.