Baltic States: Armed Forces
(asked on 20th December 2016) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many British military personnel are now serving in the three Baltic States and what is the current total NATO deployment there.
The United Kingdom (UK) currently has 21 Service personnel in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as fellow members of NATO. In the Baltic States there is a persistent NATO presence through three NATO Force Integration Units and three NATO-accredited centres of excellence.
Since Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have continually demonstrated our commitment to regional defence and security by contributing to NATO assurance activity, including: providing ships to NATO’s Standing Naval Forces in the Baltic Sea; deploying RAF Typhoons to deliver Baltic Air Policing; and conducting exercises in the region, with 400 UK personnel participating in exercise SILVER ARROW in October 2016.
At the Warsaw Summit in July 2016, NATO Allies agreed to enhance the Alliance’s presence in the Baltic States and Poland through the deployment of four highly capable battalions. The UK will be lead the Enhanced Forward Presence battalion in Estonia and it is anticipated that up to 800 UK personnel will be deployed in the Spring of 2017. The contributions from NATO Allies will be:
Host Nation | Framework Nation | Based from | Contributing Nations | Number of Personnel | Deployed from |
Estonia | UK | Tapa | France, Denmark | Each Enhanced Forward Presence deployment is expected to have around 1,000 personnel, but this will vary over time due to planned rotations of units. | Each Enhanced Forward Presence battalion will be deployed from early 2017. |
Latvia | Canada | Adazi | Albania, Italy, Poland, Slovenia | ||
Lithuania | Germany | Rukla | Belgium, Croatia, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway | ||
Poland | US | Several locations including Żagań, Świętoszów, Skwierzyna, and Bolesławiec | Romania, UK |