Armed Forces
LITPOLUKRBRIG – First Exercise Is Planned To Happen This Year
The Polish Ministry of Defence declares that the first joint exercise of the joint Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian Brigade is planned to be commenced this year. Earlier, Minister of Defence Tomasz Siemoniak had stated in the Polish Radio that the exercise may take place in the autumn of 2015.
It was on Thursday, 16th April, when President Bronisław Komorowski, together with the Deputy Prime Minister Siemoniak, visited the headquarters of the newly established multinational brigade in Lublin. It was said that, until the end of this month, a technical memorandum, regarding the details related to the way the unit is to be functioning, is to be signed. This is the last stage before the unit would finally be activated.
President Komorowski recalled the fact that not only is the brigade going to be involved in NATO, UN or, should a need arise, EU-driven operations, but it also is going to constitute “one of the tools Poland could potentially use to support the reform of the Ukrainian defence system, through the process of creation of opportunities of gaining experiences which may be useful in the process of creating realistic capabilities within the scope of a close cooperation of the Ukrainian and the NATO armed forces.
According to the President: “the role of Poland is to watch over, in order to prevent the West from shutting the door to the political, security and European Union structures, and, should Ukraine be willing to join it, also the door to NATO.”