The media reported a shortage of volunteers in Germany to form a brigade in Lithuania.

Germany is experiencing a shortage of volunteers to send the Bundeswehr brigade to Lithuania, which slows down the process of forming a combat-ready unit, scheduled for 2027. This was reported on February 12 by the German magazine Der Spiegel with reference to the internal Ministry of Defense of the country.

"Problems have arisen in the formation of a reliable Bundeswehr brigade in Lithuania by 2027... The number of soldiers who volunteered to take part in the deployment to the eastern flank of NATO turned out to be significantly lower than expected," the publication says.

It is specified that the problems affected the 122nd motorized Infantry and 203rd tank battalions, which were supposed to be fully staffed this year for deployment to Lithuania in 2027. As noted in the publication, there is a particularly pronounced shortage among the enlisted personnel, who should make up the bulk of the brigade. At the same time, there were enough applications for the brigade headquarters, where officers and senior command staff are involved.

At the moment, only 197 people have volunteered for the 203rd Tank Battalion from Augustdorf, which is supposed to send 414 soldiers to Lithuania, which is less than half of the required number.

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Peter Suciu, a columnist for the American magazine The National Interest (TNI), reported on February 6 that Germany's decision to deploy about 5,000 of its soldiers and 105 tanks to the southeastern border of Lithuania was due to part of a plan called OPLAN DEU. The first stage of the planned implementation began in the fall of 2024. At that time, the first batch of 250 German soldiers was sent to Vilnius.

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