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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius last week. The US has deployed troops and tanks to the Belarusian border in Lithuania, but both countries deny they have anything to do with unrest in Belarus
A NEW deployment of US troops to Lithuania has nothing to do with unrest in neighbouring Belarus, the country’s Defence Minister Raimundas Karoblis says.
The US sent a battalion of 500 soldiers and 40 vehicles including Abrams tanks to Lithuania on September 4 for a two-month deployment on the Belarusian border. That in itself was earlier and a longer mission than the fortnight joint training exercises announced in July, and a slightly strengthened battalion (500 troops and 55 vehicles including 25 tanks) will now replace it from November and remain till next June.
US and Lithuanian officials have repeatedly denied that the deployments have anything to do with the protests against the official re-election — denounced as fraudulent by the opposition — of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Mr Lukashenko however has repeatedly described them as a threat and has ordered his own military to conduct border exercises.
The defence secretary’s resignation reveals not a split over principle but a dispute over pace of military spending, as Britain’s political Establishment unites behind deeper Nato commitments, argues NICK WRIGHT
In Washington, the willingness to accept an open war with Russia is growing — at Europe’s expense. While Nato states are being drawn into confrontation, Europe risks becoming the battlefield of a potential world war, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
