Lithuania expects NATO to reach an agreement next year to shield Baltic countries with air defenses, plugging a gap in its security against Russia, its defense minister said Tuesday.
Since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and began providing weapons and troops to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, NATO has sent more forces to the Baltics, eastern Poland and around the Black Sea.
Lithuania, which borders the Russian region of Kaliningrad, wants NATO to permanently deploy anti-aircraft weapons in the Baltics or Poland — a move seen by Moscow as an unjustified military buildup on its borders.
“We expect so,” …read more
Source: Voice of America