About 150 soldiers left the main gate of the Lieutenant General Best barracks in Vredepeel on Thursday morning for Slovakia.
The air defenders of the Defense Ground-Based Air Defense Command are going at NATO’s request in connection with the war in Ukraine.
To comfort
The mission is aimed, among other things, at reassuring the Slovak population and to deter Russia should they engage in aggressive activities against this member state on the eastern flank of the NATO treaty area.
The Dutch deployment consists of one Patriot firing unit with multiple missile launch systems. The unit in Vredepeel works closely with German troops. That country provides two fire units. They are stationed at Sliaç Air Base in the center of the country.
Also read: Soldiers Vredepeel on NATO mission to Slovakia
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The departing soldiers and vehicles were lined up on the runway of Vredepeel base on Thursday morning. After a short speech by the Land Forces commander, Lieutenant General Martin Wijnen and the Defense Commander, Ground-based Air Defense Command, Colonel Jos Kuijpers, they left for Slovakia. “It doesn’t get much more real than this,” says Kuijpers. When asked if the military is afraid, he replies, “Our people trust the training they’ve had and they know what to do.”
Slovakia recently delivered its own Russian-made S300 air defense missiles to Ukraine.