Lithuania launched the construction of a military campus for the German brigade with a symbolic capsule burying ceremony in the Rūdninkai training area on Monday.
The new 170-ha military campus will be designed and constructed by Eikos Statyba under a 125-million-euro contract signed with the Defence Ministry in early August.
The capsule burying ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, Defence Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas and Chief of Defence General Raimundas Vaikšnoras who all called the deployment of the German brigade in Lithuania a historic decision.
“Today is a historic day, a historic moment when one of the biggest projects in the history of post-independence Lithuania will be implemented over the next several years. It will be a modern military facility we haven’t had so far,” Vaikšnoras told reporters.
In his words, the arrival of the German brigade is a major deterrence factor, and it will also provide a greater sense of security for Lithuanian citizens.
“Our aim is not to threaten or intimidate, nor do we glorify or praise force in the way our opponents do. But we are confident, and must always be confident, that if necessary, we will not lack the will or the strength to make anyone who wants to test our strength regret their decision,” Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said.
For his part, Defence Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas says “very serious deterrence architecture” is being created with the construction of the German military campus.
“It marks the change in NATO’s planning process as we have now effectively moved to deterrence by denial,” the defence minister said.
Nils Hilmer, state secretary at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence, says the deployment of the German brigade in Lithuania is one of the biggest projects undertaken by the German army.
“It brings the German Zeitenwende into life,” he said.
Town-size campus
About 80 percent of the German brigade will be stationed on the future military campus in Rūdninkai, and the number of German soldiers will exceed 4,000, which is equal to the population of the Lithuanian town of Šilalė.
“As far as the second phase is concerned, and looking at them together, it has to be said that what we are going to see here can in principle be compared to the size of the infrastructure of the town of Šilalė,” Kasčiūnas said.
The new campus will be ten times larger than the Rokantiškės military campus opened earlier this year.
“Unlike other unit locations, this one is very convenient as we have it geographically close to the border where we can have a concentration of our troops and respond swiftly,” General Vaikšnoras said, adding that having firing ranges and manoeuvring areas nearby was also convenient for the troops.
“This is very optimal, this is a new concept, it is a size we have never had before,” the chief of defence said.
The new campus will have 120 buildings, helipads, training fields, marshalling areas and more than 10-km of internal roads.
“In addition to the construction of the military campus, other work is underway [...], including the design and construction of heavy machine gun and infantry fighting vehicle firing ranges, the design and construction of a multi-purpose area, that is, the design of a tank firing range [...],” the minister said.
The infrastructure is being developed on the site of a former Soviet air force training ground where bombs used to be dropped. Part of the area has already been cleared. However, the area in the middle of the site – the epicentre of bombing – still needs to be cleared, and the plan is to remove exploded and unexploded aerial bombs and their remnants during the last phase of the development of the site.
Plan A
Work on the second construction phase is scheduled to continue in the autumn. The second phase will see the construction of the remaining infrastructure for combat battalions and support unit and it will include HQs, barracks, repair shops, warehouses, garages, a canteen, sports facilities with a stadium, marshalling areas, parking areas, and residential dormitories.
The second phase will be four times larger than the first one, the Defence Ministry said.
German media reported earlier that Vilnius had informed Berlin that the infrastructure required for stationing the brigade would not be ready on time, so the final deployment might be delayed until the end of 2028 or early 2029.
Kasčiūnas said at the time that Berlin had been briefed on Plan B. He now says one should not focus on that too much as Lithuania is doing everything as agreed.
“Our goal is Plan A, we are implementing it and it is the fundamental plan. The letter B got a bit exaggerated, that’s not what this is about. It is about having a backup option at a certain point in the process,” the minister said.
In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vilnius and Berlin agreed on the permanent deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania. Berlin plans to do so by 2027, with the bulk of the brigade to be based in the Rūdninkai training area in the eastern district of Šalčininkai. Lithuania is to put the necessary infrastructure in place by that time.
The brigade will consist of about 5,000 troops. Currently, Lithuania estimates that one-third of them will arrive with their families.
The Lithuanian Defence Ministry estimates that investments into the military and training infrastructure needed to host the German brigade could reach 800 million euros.
The brigade’s initial command element, about 20 military personnel, arrived in Lithuania in early April. They are responsible for planning the brigade’s relocation to Lithuania and coordinating the requirements for the military infrastructure.
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