High visit for the Havelter soldiers who are on deployment in Lithuania. King Willem-Alexander went on the attack this afternoon together with the Bravo ‘Coyote’ Company.
On the Pabrade training ground, the king is ‘one of the guys’ for a while. He goes into battle with the other soldiers in a CV90 infantry fighting vehicle and clears obstacles with a Kodiak recovery tank. After the training, the king spoke to the military, after which he traveled to Vilnius to meet the president of Lithuania.
The Bravo ‘Coyote’ Company belongs to the 44 Armored Infantry Battalion, which is part of the 43 Mechanized Brigade. That brigade is stationed at the Johannes Post Barracks in Havelte. But now the men and women are part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence mission. This mission is to protect citizens of the Baltic states against possible Russian aggression.
The Netherlands has been participating in the NATO mission since 2017. Soldiers from Havelte were also in the country before.