Zapad 2017 EN

The Lithuanian State Defense Council will discuss the needs of the national defense system and the country's participation in international operations in 2018 and 2019 at its meeting on Monday.

The Lithuanian State Defence Council will discuss the needs of the national defense system and the country's participation in international operations at its meeting next week.

Lithuania has received an invitation from Moscow to observe Zapad (West), a large-scale military exercise to be held jointly by Russia and Belarus in September.

International NATO battalions in the Baltic Sea region are an integral part of regional defense, Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaitė said after meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Rukla, central Lithuania, on Friday.

The warnings made by Georgia's former president Mikheil Saakashvili during a visit in Lithuania on Tuesday about Russia's readiness to annex Belarus are not grounded, political scientists say.

The prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, is coming to Lithuania this week to meet with President Dalia Grybauskaitė at the Training Regiment of Great Etmon Jonušas Radvila in Rukla on Friday.

The United States may station seven fighter-jets in Lithuania for the time of the large-scale Russian-Belarusian war games Zapad 2017 this fall, President Dalia Grybauskaitė said in Tallinn on Monday.

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaitė on Monday restated support to the new sanctions taken by the United States against Russia.

The United States (US) will double the number of air-policing fighter-jets in Lithuania during the large-scale Russian-Belarusian military exercises Zapad 2017 this fall, President Dalia Grybauskaitė said.

Lithuania on Friday received an invitation from the Belarusian Defense Ministry to all accredited foreign defense attaches to take part in the observation program of the joint Belarusian-Russian strategic exercise Zapad 2017.

Althrough the official Minsk says that foreign representatives will be free to watch the Belarusian-Russian Zapad 2017 military training, Lithuania has not received an invitation yet, Lietuvos Žinios daily said.

Lithuania's Dalia Grybauskaitė and her Baltic counterparts will meet with US Vice-President Mike Pence in Tallinn, pledging to address US military assistance, cyber security, the Belarusian nuclear power plant in Astravyets and supplies of US liquefied gas to Europe.

At a meeting with Russia's envoy on Thursday, NATO ambassadors asked him questions about the scale and scenario of the large-scale Zapad 2017 military exercise scheduled to take place next to Lithuania this September, says Lithuania's Ambassador to the Alliance Vytautas Leškevičius.

Military activity in the Baltic Sea region has recently heightened, however, the situation is under control, says Lithuania's Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis.

The Baltic prime ministers say that their countries are ready for Zapad, a major military exercise to be held jointly by Russia and Belarus in September, and feel safe after NATO partners have deployed additional capabilities in the region.

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaitė on Friday arrived in the city of Kharkov in eastern Ukraine to congratulate Ukrainians on visa-free travels to the European Union (EU) and express support in the Kiev conflict with Moscow.