The Czech Republic wants to take part in the defence of Estonia and send its troops to the country to reinforce the eastern flank of NATO next year.
The Czech defence minister, Martin Stropnicky, said at a Visegrad Group meeting that his country would like to take part in an “allied battlegroup within the reinforced military presence, either under the British command in Estonia or under the German command in Lithuania”.
According to the ministry of defence, the Czech Republic wants to support the very high readiness joint task force as much as possible.
Earlier in January, Czech troops took part in the Training Bridge 2017 exercise in Lithuania. The country’s troops will stay in Lithuania until March.
Stropnicky also said the fact that General James Mattis was the new US defence secretary brought hope that the US policy within NATO might remain unchanged.
The Visegrad Group is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European states – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – for the purposes of furthering their European integration, as well as for advancing military, economic and energy cooperation with one another.
The army of the Czech Republic comprise the land forces, air force and support units. The army employs over 21,000 active frontline personel and spends over USD2 billion annually on defence.
I
Cover: Czech soldiers participate in exercise Combined Resolve in Germany in 2013 (Gertrud Zach, Wikimedia). Please consider making a donation for the continuous improvement of our publication.
