Merz warns of Russia threat

GERMAN Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned yesterday that Russia threatened security in Europe as he visited Lithuania to mark the official formation of Germany's first permanent overseas military unit since World War II, aimed at bolstering Nato's eastern flank.

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The decision to build up a 5000-strong armoured brigade in Lithuania over the coming years came in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"There is a threat to us all from Russia," Merz told reporters in the capital Vilnius. "We are protecting ourselves against this threat - and that is why we are here today."

The German deployment is aimed at deterring potential Russian aggression towards Lithuania and fellow Baltic countries Estonia and Latvia, former Soviet republics that have become Nato and EU members and fear they are increasingly in Moscow's crosshairs.

While Germany has joined multi-national military missions, including in Afghanistan and Mali, a pacifist tradition stemming from its dark World War II history meant Berlin was generally reluctant to do more.

The establishment of a permanent brigade overseas is an unprecedented move for the Bundeswehr, as the German armed forces are known, in the post-war era.