(new: current military information on the size of the battle groups and the plans for full entitlement)
BRSSEL (dpa-AFX) – NATO is making progress with its efforts to strengthen its eastern flank. As a spokeswoman for the military alliance confirmed to the German Press Agency, the four new multinational battle groups in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia have reached the first stage of operational readiness. This means that the troops are basically able to fulfill their mission, but are not yet fully equipped, for example.
NATO initially did not comment on the details. According to the Headquarters Allied Forces in Europe (Shape) on Tuesday evening, however, the battle group in Slovakia alone consists of 2,100 soldiers who are provided by the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and the USA. In Hungary there are 800 soldiers from Croatia, the USA and the host country and in Bulgaria 900 soldiers from the USA and the host country. In Romania, the battle group is currently formed by soldiers from France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The NATO military did not provide any information on the size. In a NATO graphic from March 21, the number of 3,300 soldiers stationed in Romania was mentioned. However, it also includes troops that are not part of the NATO battle group.
The new battlegroups are intended to further increase deterrence and defense capabilities in view of the Russian war against Ukraine. So far, NATO has only permanently stationed multinational alliances in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as in Poland. Normally, these battlegroups are about 1000 to 1200 soldiers strong, but they have recently been significantly strengthened because of the Ukraine war.
“We now have 40,000 soldiers under direct NATO command in the eastern part of the alliance,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday. Added to this are hundreds of thousands of troops on high alert and hundreds of ships and planes.
Numerous German soldiers are also involved in the deterrence against Russia. Germany is currently leading a battle group in Lithuania. Air force soldiers with the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, who are now part of the Battlegroup, were also deployed to Slovakia in March.
According to information from the Allied Forces Headquarters in the evening, after the so-called Initial Operational Capability, all battlegroups should also achieve the so-called Full Operational Capability in the course of this year and thus be able to meet all the requirements. In Hungary, according to plans, this will already be the case by the end of this month.
However, it is still unclear what the long-term NATO presence on the eastern flank should look like. One option is to station brigades in the eastern alliance area for the first time. They could each be around 5,000 soldiers strong and supplemented, for example, by elements of the air and sea forces or special forces.
However, such a move is likely to further increase tensions with Russia. Moscow would probably argue that the long-term deployment of such brigades is incompatible with the NATO-Russia Founding Act. In it, NATO committed itself to refraining from permanently stationing “substantial combat troops” in the eastern part of the alliance.
According to the NATO interpretation, the battlegroups stationed in battalion size up to now do not fall into this category. At the same time, it is considered unlikely that NATO will refrain from stationing brigades because of the Founding Act.
Secretary General Stoltenberg has already made it clear that Russia cannot expect NATO to stick to all the 1997 agreements. The Founding Act has a clear connection to the security environment in 1997, when Russia was still seen as a strategic partner, he said recently. Today we are in a completely different security environment, and NATO will do “what is necessary”./aha/DP/he