Netherlands sends Patriot missiles to Russian border, what’s going on?

MOSCOW – Dutch will deploy Patriot air defense units to its NATO ally, Lithuania, as part of summer joint air defense exercises.

The Dutch Ministry of Defense stated that the exercises over several weeks were important to strengthen air defenses on the eastern side. The stated aim was to test the ability of NATO forces to rapidly transport and deploy such units to specific areas.

“The decision to place US-made systems near the Russian border contributes to NATO’s air defense readiness,” said Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren, reported by RT.

Vilnius welcomed the exercise as good news, and stated that the Netherlands would carry out unannounced redeployment training of the units together with the Lithuanian armed forces.

The US-led military bloc’s Enhanced Forward Presence troops are “critical to the security of the Baltic states,” Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said. He called for more deployments and exercises involving NATO aircraft and his country’s ground-based air defense systems.

It is unclear what impact the deployment of Dutch Patriot units in Lithuania will have. A battery of air defense systems consists of several truck-mounted units, including power, radar, antenna, engagement control and other support vehicles, as well as up to eight launchers with interceptor missiles.

The Netherlands is one of the few countries to supply its two Patriot launchers to Ukraine, along with the US and Germany, which each sent a full battery.

The deployment will follow the ongoing NATO military exercise, Steadfast Defender 2024, one of the largest in decades, involving around 90,000 troops, more than a thousand combat vehicles, more than 50 naval ships, 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets from all 32 member countries.

Russia said the US-led military bloc’s increased military spending and increasingly frequent military exercises showed its “increasingly aggressive nature.” The drills constitute a practical “armed confrontation scenario with Russia,” which increases tensions and undermines world stability, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said in early March.

Patrushev described NATO as “an important tool of Washington’s influence on other countries,” which, during its 75 years of existence as a guarantor of peace and democracy “has unleashed more than a hundred wars and military conflicts around the world and is preparing for many more.”

(ahm)