Britain is to make a “long-term” deployment of troops to the Baltic region, to “watch over our allies on the eastern borders” said the Defence Secretary.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, who is currently in Brussels for a Nato meeting, is to announce small contingent of British troops will be sent to the Baltic region.
Recent deployments would seem to mark a change in British involvement on the continent, at the last defence review the government took the decision to close the UK’s bases in Germany, bringing about 20,000 troops back to the UK.
According to the Financial Times, Ministry of Defence officials said the contingent would initially comprise a single company, which is around 100 soldiers.
RAF Typhoons, deployed to the area in June, intercepted and shadowed multiple Russian military aircraft as part of Nato’s Baltic Air Policing mission.
Mr Fallon said:
“We are committed to supporting the sovereignty of the democratic nations of Eastern Europe. We are already deploying RAF jets to the Baltics and providing crucial training to the Ukrainian armed forces.
Now we will have a more regular drumbeat of troops deploying in the Baltics and Poland, and will step up our training effort in Ukraine.”
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said a “small number” of soldiers would be stationed there to “watch over our allies on the eastern borders”.
British forces recently participated in Estonia’s largest military exercise, which saw 13,000 troops repelling a simulated invasion by a large foreign aggressor.
From 2017, Britain will also take command of Nato’s new “spearhead” rapid reaction force, created at the 2014 Wales summit.
That’s a bit worrying saying we will deploy to the Baltic region and Africa when we have reduced the regular army to a size where it will fit inside Twickers.?
Watching over our allies? More like to tempt Russia away from Syria to stop the corrupt western politicians being exposed for supporting/ arming Isis. Why is it that the media and western governments are so quick to demonise Russia, they’re cleaning up their mess!
rubbish.
Raymonde Forster stop trolling everyone and take yourself for a brain shit! And if you can’t have any reasonable reply fuck off!
Matthew, you spelled your name wrong! When 9/10ths of the planet thinks that Putin is a dangerous idiot its always good to hear the Putin-Bots pretend they are part of the Anglo-Saxon race and come out with such tripe! Its ironic that every time someone like you posts such garbage, they highlight how misinformed and dangerous Russia is even in the face of world opinion which just considers Russia under Putin a joke of a country not to be taken seriously.
Just heard on the BBC don’t panic it’s only 2 bus loads,that will teach Vladimir.
So how many are they sending ? 50 or 100 ? Cameron cut the British army so much these deployments are just a joke.
Here we go…..
Just tokenism. Not worth the bother as they are hardly a deterrent. What about rotating and infantry battalion through each year…would that send more of a message? ?