Lithuania says US troops are returning

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said Tuesday that US troops are returning to Lithuania after several months without a US military presence in the Baltic state.

Nauseda said US troops would continue to be stationed in Lithuania and thanked US President Donald Trump and the US administration for the decision. He said the presence was important for Lithuania and regional security.

The number of returning troops was not given. A presidential statement quoted Nauseda as saying the deployment would be no smaller than the previous one.

About 1,000 US troops left Lithuania in June without being replaced. The withdrawal came as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced a six-month review of US deployments in Europe.

US forces had been on rotational deployments in Lithuania since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. US heavy battalions have rotated in Lithuania since 2019, with deployments of up to 1,000 troops. US forces have also been in Estonia and Latvia since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.