German tanks and troops in Lithuania have one goal: Scare off Russia

Lithuania is busy digging up a remote forest to host German troops.

PABRADĖ, Lithuania — Thudding artillery and tank gunfire under the gaze of swooping attack helicopters, all set to a soundtrack of 1980’s heavy rock band Van Halen: This is what Germany’s Bundeswehr looks like in 2024.

After taking the landmark decision to post 5,000 soldiers to Lithuania by 2027 — Berlin’s first full-time foreign troop deployment since World War 2 — Germany closed out its part of last month’s NATO Steadfast Defender exercises with war games only 15 kilometers from the border with Russian ally Belarus.

A climatic 90-minute live fire battle was staged for lawmakers, diplomats and local military chiefs at the Pabradė training grounds.

With live commentary, and screens hanging from a gantry showing how modern tank systems find their targets and retrieve the wounded, the message for the VIPs was clear: We’re getting ready for Russia.

“Germany stands by its word,” General Carsten Breuer, the Germany army’s chief inspector, said under a sudden downpour after the sun-kissed demonstration had closed out with a choreographed fly-by of two aging anti-tank-missile-equipped Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopters. “We will defend every centimeter of NATO territory.”

Breuer said it will take five to eight years for Moscow to reconstitute its armed forces from the grinding war in Ukraine, which puts a 2029 deadline on NATO efforts to prepare for possible combat.

What’s happening in Lithuania is the external dimension of Germany’s Zeitenwende initiative launched after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Ditching the post-Cold War peace dividend, Germany threw an emergency €100 billion into re-equipping its military and revamped its defense doctrine to turn the Bundeswehr into a military able to fight — and win — a war.

“The world is different than it was before February 24, 2022,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said during a visit to Pabradė just days before the final show. “For us as the Bundeswehr, that means that the mission has changed; national and alliance defense is the focus.”

Germany is the lead nation in NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Lithuania. In Estonia it’s the U.K. playing a similar role, while in Latvia it’s Canada.

In Pabradė, German soldiers are joined by Lithuanian, Dutch and French troops for the so-called Quadriga exercise, but it’s the Bundeswehr’s 10th Panzer Division running the show with Leopard 2 tanks, Puma and Boxer infantry vehicles, the Panzerhaubitze2000 artillery platform and mine clearing systems.

Blitz in the Baltics

Deep in the pine forests south of Vilnius, 80 kilometers from Pabradė, soldiers and diggers are preparing the ground for many of the 5,000 troops and their families who will soon be permanently based in Lithuania.

The swampy Rūdninkai Forest was once peppered by Soviet bombers as part of Cold War training sorties, but today Lithuania’s top brass is mapping out a base camp with the dozens of Bundeswehr soldiers already in place. Hundreds more are due to land by the end of the year.

Interest in the war games at Pabradė adds an element of urgency for Rimantas Jarmalavičius, a Lithuanian colonel who, gesturing across a shrubby clearing, says tree stumps and old explosives have already been removed to make way for new barracks.

“This is collective defense and it’s important for our aggressive neighbors that we are not alone,” said the 52-year-old, who came of age as Lithuania was struggling free of the Soviet Union. “The cyber attacks, the propaganda is constant, the Russians are aggressive all the time.”

Before taking on the post, Jarmalavičius oversaw the territorial defense of the southern region of Lithuania that includes the Suwałki Gap, the thin strip of border with Poland between Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus that is often seen as a likely flashpoint in any future conflict between NATO and Moscow.

Walking across the Suwałki Gap’s 60 kilometers of unkempt terrain prepared him for the challenge of getting remote woodland for military use. It’s taken months to clear the undergrowth and Soviet-era explosives from the 40-hectare area needed for housing.

Unexploded bombs have been found sunk as deep as 2 meters into the mud in areas that will soon be used for tank training, he said.

There are other challenges too, as old graves, prehistoric settlements and the site of an 1863 battle with the Russians add complications for prospective developers. “There are places that need to be preserved,” Jarmalavičius said.

Still, progress is being made. The local council has now fixed up water and waste lines to the edge of the forest; the aim is to tender out construction contracts this year.

In addition to housing for 5,000 troops and a helipad, roads have to be paved to shuttle people and vehicles between the various training facilities — from small arms and machine gun shooting ranges to a 12-kilometer artillery ground, a tank firing area and a fake settlement to train for intense urban warfare.

It’s Jarmalavičius’ job to make sure Lithuania’s pledge to pay for the housing and training facilities across the 170-square-kilometer base is managed properly.

Under a plan agreed with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Lithuania will pay for the infrastructure while Berlin will shoulder the costs of maintenance and equipment for the brigade.

German officials have estimated the cost to the taxpayer at anything from €6 billion to €9 billion; much of that will be spent on heavy weapons to arm the brigade.

Operating and maintaining the base will cost €800 million a year, a spokesperson for Germany’s defense ministry said.

The logistics of getting commercial flights scheduled to provincial German cities so those serving in Rūdninkai can easily head home for leave is another problem, one German soldier complained. But some creature comforts may be easier to install than others.

“Most probably Lidl will be established here,” joked Jarmalavičius of the popular German discount supermarket chain. “That’s up to the free market.”

Source: Politico