Berlin will start deploying elements of the brigade to be based in Lithuania early next year, Germany's Chief of Defence General Carsten Breuer said on Monday.
"We will have our roadmap by the end of this quarter. It's very clear and I am very convinced that we are going into the implementation phase by the beginning of 2024," Breuer told a news conference in Vilnius on Monday.
"The roadmap we've set for ourselves is very ambitious. By the end of this year, the entire planning process [will be] completed, so that we can enter into the implementation phase in 2024," the German chief of defence said.
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"Our joint working group serves to closely coordinate between Lithuania and Germany. The topics to be discussed cover a wide range and they are, I must admit, complex. But I know we will be able to stick to our timeline," he added.
The general also noted that "the basic decision" to permanently station a brigade in Lithuania "was taken eight weeks ago".
"There's no blueprint for doing this, so we really need to go into the depths, we really have to do it from scratch," he said.
Germany has been leading NATO's multinational battalion deployed in Lithuania since 2017
Earlier, Berlin said it expected to have a plan for the brigade's deployment in Lithuania ready by the fourth quarter of this year.
"One thing is for certain: the deployment will fit as flexibly as possible into NATO defence plans," Breuer said. "The brigade is a part of the NATO force model."
The brigade's Forward Command Element is currently stationed in Lithuania.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian and German leaders adopted a joint communiqué on the deployment of a German brigade to Lithuania.
However, it later emerged that the countries held different positions on the issue, with Vilnius wanting a permanent deployment, while Berlin said that only part of the force would be stationed in the Baltic country.
In the run-up to the NATO summit, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius unexpectedly said that the brigade would be fully deployed to Lithuania.
Berlin repays 'safety debt'
According to Breuer, Germany’s planned brigade in Lithuania allows the country "to pay back for the solidarity and the feeling of safety" it once felt when it was at NATO's frontline during the Cold War.
"For a long time, Germany used to be a frontline state on NATO's eastern border. Allied troops were stationed in my country to defend every inch of our alliance territory in the event of Russian aggression," Breuer said.
"Now it's time to pay back, to return the solidarity and the feeling of safety we have been given by NATO partners and allies for decades," the general said. "Therefore, Germany will [...] deploy a combat brigade to Lithuania.”
Conditions remain unchanged
Germany has not set any new conditions for the permanent deployment of its brigade, said Lithuanian Chief of Defense Valdemaras Rupšys.
“No, no [new] conditions have been set. We are now in the process of assessing, calculating all the options, how we could deploy," he told reporters on Sunday.
"The decision has been taken. Now all the other work is in the hands of specialists. It means deciding when, how much and where to deploy," he added.
According to Rupšys, more information on the brigade should be available in late September or mid-October.
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