On April 9 Vice Minister of National Defence Margiris Abukevičius and Vice Minister of Defence of Georgia Lela Chikovani endorsed Lithuanian–Georgian bilateral cooperation plan 2021 that covers visits, participation in exercises and courses, and other bilateral events for the year.
Defence cooperation of Lithuania and Georgia encompasses many areas, such as military education and training, cyber security, joint training in exercises in Lithuania and Georgia, also, cooperation at Land Force, Special Forces, Military Academy level.
“I would like to place a separate emphasis on cybersecurity which we see as one of the priority areas of cooperation. The Declaration of Intent signed in 2019 embeds the political will to expand the cooperation in this area, we have plans for the ways to further develop cybersecurity capabilities. This year we will be training in a cybersecurity exercise,” said M. Abukevičius and added that Georgian participation in the Regional Cyber Defence Centre under the National Cyber Security Centre to be established in Kaunas was also included in the Declaration of Intent.
Practically all the joint Lithuanian-Georgian events planned last year were cancelled or rescheduled, therefore significantly more initiatives laid out in the latest cooperation plan are expected to be implemented this year.
The plan provides for Lithuanian participation in two multinational exercise sin Georgia this year: Agile Spirit and Maple Arch.
Photo credits: G. Maksimovicz-Alkema/MoD.
