Residents of these cities, road users may be stopped and checked, residents may hear or see sound or smoke devices imitating the actions of the enemy.
News portal lrytas.lt communicates everything residents need to know about upcoming drills and curfews.
What will happen?
This week, the Lithuanian army and NATO allies are starting the complex exercise “Thunder Bastion 2024” – preparations are being made to carry out the activities of military command posts, mutual interaction will be checked.
Defense staff officer, Major Donatas Suchockis for the news portal lrytas.lt said that currently a number of various military exercises are already taking place in Lithuania, but it is during these exercises that the military commanders will train how to interact with self-government and work together with the military units assigned to them.
“Something unique is happening in the city of Kaunas and Klaipėda these days – military commandants are appointed to perform the functions of coordinator, during which they mediate between the municipality, institutions and the commander of the military unit, who is obliged to neutralize hybrid threats by establishing a military territory during a state of emergency”, – to the news portal lrytas.lt said D.Suchockis.
From May 6 to 8, already appointed military commandants will be activated in 22 municipalities. At that time, the military commandants in the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas will have commandant staffs and commandant unit soldiers assigned to them, formed from Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union commandant units and soldiers of the National Defense Volunteer Forces.
“This is a large enough sample, but only in Vilnius and Kaunas the commandant’s offices will be staffed with soldiers – in other municipalities it will be mostly limited to table exercises, where only military commandants, deputies and municipal administration staff will work.
Small exceptions will be in Trakai, Ukmerge, Švenčiony and several other municipalities, where there will be some commandant unit soldiers, but they will definitely not be as visible as in the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas,” said the major.
What will the curfew look like?
A curfew will be introduced in certain residential areas of the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas.
“As you know, the military commandant is appointed to perform his functions and duties after the introduction of wartime in the country, when he acquires powers and certain tasks. One of them, in addition to interaction support and support to the armed forces, is to ensure order and seriousness, to take preventive actions by preventing intelligence, diversionary or criminogenic activities in the municipality.
Therefore, one of the instruments would be the introduction of military curfew, which would allow a little stronger control of the territory, movement, identification of outsiders and thus prevent any more serious criminal or diversionary activities.
As for the curfew, this year for the first time we will train to practically implement, at least partially, these actions in the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius, in certain dedicated territories”, said D.Suchockis.
Therefore, during the night from May 7 to 8, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., the soldiers of the curfew unit, in cooperation with the crews of Lithuanian police and military police officers, will carry out measures to implement the curfew.
“Inhabitants should know that this does not restrict their freedom of movement in any way, there will be no areas prohibited to pass through. However, both residents and traffic can be stopped as normal, as would be the case during a traffic police raid.
The vehicle, documents of the vehicle owner or passengers may be checked. However, passing from one place to another will certainly not be restricted,” he assured.
Residents can also hear certain sounds imitating the actions of the enemy.
“I hope that the training and activities of the Lithuanian soldiers will not so much surprise the population as delight them, give them a little more confidence that we are training, preparing and want to be as well prepared as possible.
But, of course, in order for soldiers to train properly, simulation groups of hostile actions will be used, so soldiers, simulation groups will use simulated sound or smoke devices, protecting objects or implementing curfew measures.
“If the members of the enemy simulation group do not wear military uniforms, there will always be a responsible soldier or officer in uniform nearby, observing the actions for security reasons and for control,” he said.
Tags: interest war commandants exceeded expectations numbers show
-
