U.S. Secretary of Defence did not comment on Patriot deployment in Lithuania during his visit in Vilnius, on Wednesday, confirming steadfast NATO’s contribution to the security of the Baltics States.
James Mattis met with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė on Wednesday morning and later was scheduled to meet the Defence Ministers of all three Baltic States and visit German-led NATO battle group at a training ground outside Vilnius.
“You brought moral clarity to the purposes of the Alliance, moral clarity knowing that when great democracies fail to confront danger far worst peril can follow’, Mattis quoted former US President George Bush, during the presser.
US defence officials said to AFP on Wednesday that US military are considering sending a Patriot missile battery to the Baltic region for NATO exercises this summer as part of multinational air drills, though the move would only be temporary.
The move comes amid heightened tensions with Russia, which is itself holding massive military exercises in Belarus and Kaliningrad, in September. The so-called Zapad drills will see Russia showcase new hardware and upgraded existing systems in its western military region, the officials said.
‘I think that any build-up of Russian combat power in the area where they know and we all know they are not threatened by anything that we are doing in Lithuania or elsewhere in democratic countries, any kind of build-up like that is simply destabilizing,’ said Mattis without commenting anything specific about Patriot systems.
‘We need all necessary means for defence and for deterrence and that we will decide together with Americans’, says Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.
Mattis's trip to Lithuania is his first to Eastern Europe.
Sound bite (English)
JAMES MATTIS, U.S. Secretary of Defence:
We welcomed your NATO accession and you joined other democracies in defence of our shared values. Marking that occasion President Bush said and I quote here about NATO’s new members that ‘you brought moral clarity to the purposes of the Alliance, moral clarity knowing that when great democracies fail to confront danger far worst peril can follow’.
Sound bite (Lithuanian)
DALIA GRYBAUSKAITĖ, President of Lithuania:
I am very happy that I can see an outstanding professional and a friend of the Baltic States and Lithuania in the person of Secretary of Defence.
Sound bite (English)
JAMES MATTIS, U.S. Secretary of Defence:
Systems that we bring are those determined necessary. I think that any build-up of Russian combat power in the area where they know and we all know they are not threatened by anything that we are doing in Lithuania or elsewhere in democratic countries, any kind of build-up like that is simply destabilizing. I just leave it with that.
Sound bite (Lithuanian)
DALIA GRYBAUSKAITĖ, President of Lithuania:
