On June 14 Chief of Defence of Denmark General Peter Bartram will visit Lithuania. General will meet with Chief of Defence of Lithuania Lieutenant General Jonas Vytautas Žukas and take part in DV Day of Exercise Iron Wolf 2016 in Rukla (Jonava distr.), and meet with Danish soldiers training in the exercise.
The Danish and the Lithuanian Chiefs of Defence are expected to discuss bilateral and multilateral military cooperation, run-up for the NATO Summit in Warsaw, and other relevant matters, in a bilateral meeting.
"Danish armed forces are one of our closest partners. We have been working together on a range of different projects for over two decades," Chief of Defence of Lithuania said ahead of the meeting. General expressed appreciation for Denmark's sending roughly 1,200-strong battalion task force with designated equipment to take part in the exercise, just like it did in 2014. According to the Lithuanian Chief of Defence, it is a proof that the armed forces of both countries are able to operate smoothly together, whether it is a rehearsal of a military scenario, or rendering host nation support, and have a shared perception of security threats.
Exercise Iron Wolf running on June 12 through 21 at Gaižiūnai Training Area (Jonava district), and territories of Kėdainiai, Kaunas and Jonava districts trains and will eventually certify a battalion-sized task force formed by the 2nd Brigade of the Danish Division, and including a Lithuanian company, for standby for the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF). Apart from 1,200 soldiers from Denmark, the exercise will also involve roughly 1,5000 troops from Germany, France, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and the United States.
Danish-Lithuanian defence cooperation
Since Lithuania first joined a peacekeeping operation in 1994, over a thousand of Lithuanian soldiers were trained for the purpose with Danish assistance. Lithuanians were assigned to the Danish Contingent to deploy in the multinational operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Iraq, and Kosovo, while Denmark's troops served in composition of the Lithuanian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ghor province, Afghanistan.
Denmark has great merits in training and arming General Romualdas Giedraitis Artillery Battalion of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, this ally continually renders assistance by arranging training events for Lithuanian military, joint military exercises, and deploying Danish soldiers to take part in military exercises held in Lithuania. Mechanised Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf, Lithuanian Armed Forces, has been affiliated to the Danish Army Division (DDIV) as part of bilateral LITBRIG project since 2006, which increases the ability of both countries to carry out joint operations, and gives Lithuanian soldiers the opportunity to train in NATO exercises and training as part of a division.
The Danish Royal Air Force has deployed four rotations of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission and one augmentation of 6 fighter aircraft (in May-August 2014) so far.
Spokesperson for the Chief of Defence of Lithuania Captain Mindaugas Neimontas, 00370 5 278 5091, 00370 682 25359, e-mail: mindaugas.neimontas@mil.lt
Related image (credit: Capt Paulius Babilas)
