Lithuanian defmin hopes to reach agreement on new training area site within weeks

VILNIUS - Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene hopes that an agreement on the location of the new brigade-size training area in Lithuania will be reached within the upcoming weeks.

"The army has provided us with full assessment, and we hope to have certain political processes this week and they will allow us to move forward. For our part, we have done all our homework, and the draft legislation that will need to be submitted to the Seimas is ready," the minister told reporters on Monday after a meeting of the State Defense Council, adding that political decisions still need to be made at the highest political level "together with local government."

"This is also something that may take a bit more time, but we really don't want to have the situation we had last time when there was a lot of resistance, anger, and misunderstanding. We really don't have that luxury now," Sakaliene said." I would very much like this to happen within weeks, not months."

However, the minister repeated several times that this would depend on "the willingness of local authorities to cooperate."

Sakaliene has previously pledged that two locations most suitable for new training areas in Lithuania would be selected by the end of August, but the formation of the new government took longer than expected, which has stalled the process.

As BNS reported earlier, one of the training area should be brigade-size, covering approximately 20,000 hectares. The size of the other training area is still unclear. Southern Lithuania was previously named as the most favorable location for these areas.

At the time, the government's program stated that Lithuania was seeking to establish a single training area where brigade-sized forces could train.

It is not yet clear how long it will take to set up the training areas, but the preliminary estimate is four years.

Lithuania is looking into where it could set up a new brigade-size military training area as it is establishing a national division within its army, and also as the number of conscripts and reservists is going up and the country is acquiring new military equipment.

Germany vows to deploy a brigade of several thousand soldiers in Lithuania by 2027.

There's a total of nine training area in Lithuania right now.