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Poland, Lithuania, other NATO allies begin military exercise around Suwalki Gap

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Poland, Lithuania, other NATO allies begin military exercise around Suwalki Gap
Lithuanian border guard officers patrol along the Belarus–Lithuania border on July 10, 2023, in Dieveniskes, Lithuania. Photo for illustrative purposes. (Omar Marques/Getty Images)

Poland, Lithuania, and other NATO members, including the U.S., began military exercises around the Suwalki Gap in Lithuania on April 21.

The Suwalki Gap is a thin 65-kilometer (40 miles) strip of land on the Polish-Lithuanian border between Belarus and Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad. It has been historically considered to be a potential flashpoint of military conflict between Russia and NATO.

The exercise was jointly planned in 2022 by the Polish and Lithuanian militaries and involves at least 1,500 troops and hundreds of pieces of equipment, the Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT said.

The specifics of the exercises remain largely classified. LRT reported, citing the Lithuanian military, that the main goal is to test the joint defenses in the Suwalki Gap area.

It is running concurrently with a similar U.S.-led military exercise in Lithuania, dubbed Saber Strike, which began on April 19.

Tensions in the Suwalki Gap area have risen since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, prompting NATO forces to conduct regular military exercises and improve their collective defensive capabilities.

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Nate Ostiller

News Editor

Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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