The United Kingdom may send “hundreds more” troops to the Baltic states amid tensions with Russia, the Times of London reported on Friday.
Under new plans, "hundreds" more combat-ready soldiers could be deployed at a short notice, unnamed defence sources told the daily, according to Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR News.
NATO member states have already "held high-level talks on whether to bolster their presence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland".
“If there was a NATO ally about to have Russian troops knocking on their doorstep then they [the force] would be there quickly,” according to The Times.
Britain is the lead national of NATO’s Enhanced Forward presence (eFP) in Estonia, while Germany heads the multinational battalion in Lithuania.
The eFP forces have been present in the Baltic states since 2017 and were formed in response to Russia invading Ukraine in 2014.
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