| NATO’s presence in Lithuania |  | | |
NATO’s multinational forces in Lithuania stand ready to defend the Alliance’s northeastern territory. A troop presence that began with a multinational battlegroup in 2017 has now grown in size to include thousands of troops, thanks to the permanent addition of a German Army tank brigade in the country, bringing the total number of troops under NATO control in Lithuania to more than 5,000. This deployment adds a significant amount of combat power, from infantry fighting vehicles and powerful Leopard 2 tanks to artillery and air defence capabilities. Other countries contributing forces include Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway. After eight years of training alongside the Lithuanian Army, the German brigade is fully integrated with their host nation’s defence plans and is ready to defend Allied territory against all aggression. Lithuania is also further protected by the new NATO activity ‘Eastern Sentry’, which boosts NATO’s vigilance along the entire eastern flank with more air, land and sea-based military assets. The activity also includes innovative technologies to tackle new challenges, like the ones we see from drones. Additionally, it helps to better connect the military assets that are already available, from the High North to the Black Sea, and elsewhere in the Alliance. Click here to download the video. You can also watch the video on YouTube. Please register on the NATO website to download the files and subscribe to the NATO Multimedia newsletter to keep receiving our e-mails. | |
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Secretary General Mark Rutte sent holiday greetings to NATO troops on 19 December 2025, thanking them for their service. “Our men and women in uniform are really the best in the world”. | |
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| NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte travelled to Poland on 18 December 2025, where he met President Karol Nawrocki, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. The Secretary General visited the Bemowo Piskie training area, where he had the opportunity to meet and thank personnel serving as part of NATO’s Forward Land Forces. |
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| On 18 December 2025, NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, Radmila Shekerinska, visited Armenia, where she met Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Defence Minister Suren Papikyan, and Speaker of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan. |
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| On 17 November 2025, at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Shekerinska, together with the Chair of the Political and Security Committee of the European Union, Delphine Pronk, led an informal meeting of the North Atlantic Council and the Political and Security Committee, focusing on military mobility. |
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| On 16 December 2025, at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, Allies agreed NATO’s common-funded budgets for 2026. Allied defence spending is on an upward trajectory with Allies increasingly investing in their national forces as well as collective capabilities. |
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| The Director General of the NATO International Military Staff (DGIMS), Lieutenant General Remigijus Baltrėnas, visited Kyiv, Ukraine, 16-17 December 2025. During meetings with Deputy Minister of Defence of Ukraine Anatolii Kutsevol, the leadership of Ukrainian General Staff, Air Force Command and Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, DGIMS received the latest situational updates and expressed NATO International Military Staff (IMS) views on how to further strengthen cooperation with Ukraine. |
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| Brussels, 15 December 2025. National Defence Personnel Directors held their second annual meeting today in Brussels to discuss how Allies can build, sustain, and regenerate their defence workforce, both in numbers and key skillsets, to underpin NATO’s warfighting readiness. |
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| On 15 December 2025, NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Shekerinska attended the European Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council. |
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| In 2025, photographers from across the Alliance took thousands of pictures, capturing landmark political events like the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, the grit and cooperation of Allied troops conducting NATO exercises, and other moments of beauty, unity and humanity. We chose four of our favourite photos and put them to a vote on social media, asking the public to choose NATO’s photo of the year for 2025. Scroll to the end to see the winner! |
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NATO’s multinational forces in Lithuania stand ready to defend the Alliance’s northeastern territory. | |
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