The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Tuesday upon his arrival at the NATO summit in Vilnius (Lithuania) that Spain will deploy additional troops in Slovakia and Romania. The objective of this mission is to reinforce the defense position of the Eastern flank of the Atlantic Alliance against the threat of Russia.
“Spain, as a committed member of NATO, is going to announce today a deployment of Spanish forces and soldiers in Slovakia to reinforce the eastern front. And we are also going to reinforce with a greater number of troops our contingent in Romania“Sánchez said upon arrival at the Vilnius summit.
The President of the Government has not given more details about the number of troops nor about the deployment schedule.
As EL ESPAÑOL announced at the beginning of last June, Spain had offered to spearhead that new mission framed in the deployment strategy of the allies with the intention of dissuading Russia from any warmongering act against NATO countries.
Sánchez announces that Spain will send the military to Slovakia and increase those of Romania
As sources from the Atlantic Alliance confirmed to this newspaper, it will go from deploying in four countries to increasing it to eight.
In addition to Latvia, during 2022 the Armed Forces multiplied their participation in air police missions in the east of NATO, which throughout the year have carried out non-simultaneous deployments in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia and Romania.
All these gestures have led to Spain being considered a “loyal partner” in NATO, since it is one of the countries that has responded the fastest to their demands. In fact, according to allied sources, ours is the fifth country that contributes the most to the operations and missions of the Alliance. For this reason, according to the same sources, he would have deserved to direct this new and important assignment.
[El Gobierno ofrece a la OTAN que España lidere su nuevo batallón disuasorio en el frente Este]
Currently, Spain is already participating in the reinforcement of the NATO Eastern Front with 650 soldiers in the mission of Reinforced Advanced Presence in Latvia. Furthermore, our country has deployed combat planes in Romania (with a contingent of 130 military) to monitor the sky over the Black Sea. It also has a long-range surveillance radar in this country.
Support for Ukraine
At the NATO summit in Vilnius, Sánchez transferred the support of the Government of Spain to Ukraine as a “country attacked by Putin’s imperialism” and has insisted on the “unity of all allies” in assisting kyiv.
At the same time, the President of the Government has demanded that the Atlantic Alliance “do not forget the southern flank”. NATO must take into account “the entire source of instability, of risks, of challenges that we have on the southern flank,” she insisted.
During the Vilnius summit, allied leaders are scheduled to approve new regional defense plans detailing how NATO would respond to a possible Kremlin attack. The recovery of these plans marks a major shift in Alliance strategy as these plans had not been updated since the end of the Cold War three decades ago.
