Nauseda: US military presence in Lithuania will remain

The U.S. military presence in Lithuania will remain unchanged, but there will be fewer U.S. troops in Europe. This statement was made by the President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda, writes sb.by.

According to TASS, on the air of the TV channel LNK, he noted:

- In Europe, unlike Lithuania, where the level of presence will remain the same, the US military will be smaller. The US administration is sending us signals that Europeans must take greater responsibility for their own security.

Lithuania’s Defense Ministry said last week that two battalions of the U.S. army will arrive in the Baltic republic by the end of October. One battalion will be heavy with military equipment, including Abrams tanks, the other will be engineering, with a total of about 1,000 troops.

Recall that since 2019, a heavy battalion of the US Army consisting of about 1 thousand people with Abrams tanks, Bradley BMP, Paladin artillery systems is based in Lithuania on a rotational basis. In November 2024, it was decided to transfer the rotation to a permanent basis, that is, it was carried out without interruptions between 9-month shifts. At the beginning of June 2026, the United States withdrew the battalion from Lithuania and did not inform about the future of its presence. Lithuania reported a delay in the supply of HIMARS MLRS from the United States