{"id":116070,"date":"2026-05-16T01:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T01:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/116070\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T01:28:08","slug":"lithuania-poland-forecast-military-aid-to-help-reopen-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/116070\/","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania, Poland forecast ‘military aid’ to help reopen Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

WARSAW, Poland \u2014 Poland and Lithuania<\/a> are making clear their intention to aid American operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> amid denials that the United States is reducing troops on the eastern flank of NATO.<\/p>\n

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Kestutis Budrys told reporters in Vilnius on Thursday that although his country was \u201cnot part of [operations in Iran] from the beginning,\u201d they are now \u201con our way\u201d to aid the U.S. in opening the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur state defense council made the decision that we will be present in operations and securing the free navigation in the Hormuz Strait and in the [Persian] Gulf,\u201d Budrys said. \u201cWhat operation it will be \u2014 it will depend on the speed of the preparation of the plan of this operation.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"K\u0119stutisLithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Kestutis Budrys speaks to reporters at the ministry office in Vilnius. (Timothy Nerozzi\/Washington Examiner)<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI\u2019m sure that we will be there with our troops and with our flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a meeting with reporters in Warsaw<\/a> on Friday, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki also confirmed his country\u2019s discussions of how it can help the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cU.S. requests for possible military aid into, for example, securing Hormuz \u2014 we are responding and responding positively,\u201d Bosacki said. \u201cThis is within the pipeline of discussion both with our American friends and allies and within NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the specifics of expected military aid and the timeline for such operations, the deputy foreign minister said he \u201cwill not go into details.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both countries were at the center of intense speculation this week after reports emerged that President Donald Trump\u2019s administration was reducing the number of troops in their region<\/a>.<\/p>\n

War Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a restructuring of military personnel placement, but Lithuania and Poland claim they have been assured the changes will not negatively affect the U.S. military presence in either country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take reassurement that the U.S. doesn\u2019t plan to reduce the number or the capabilities of U.S. troops in Poland,\u201d Bosacki told reporters. \u201cWe think that, all in all, we\u2019ll end up with the same number \u2014 close to 10,000 U.S. troops in Poland \u2014 and capabilities as they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA container ship sits at anchor as a small motorboat passes in the foreground in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi\/ISNA via AP)<\/p>\n

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk previously stated that \u201cthese decisions are of a logistical nature and will not directly affect deterrence capabilities and our security,\u201d and other national officials have indicated a desire to increase U.S. presence in Poland.<\/p>\n

Bosacki explained that the Pentagon<\/a>\u2018s changes to troop logistics in Europe \u201cshould have been communicated better\u201d and admitted that Warsaw is \u201cstill awaiting some answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deputy foreign affairs minister clarified it was not \u201ccommunications between allies\u201d that initially got tangled. He instead blamed \u201cleaks\u201d based on \u201ctext messages from the soldiers\u201d that were not accurate and a delayed response from officials correcting the record.<\/p>\n

FINALND HAS \u2018EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION\u2019 AS TRUMP ON NATO FAILURES BUT PLEADS NOT TO LET RUSSIA, CHINA DIVIDE THE WEST<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly two days later there is an official announcement from the Pentagon,\u201d he said. \u201cI was a journalist and I was a spokesman, and I know a thing or two about communication \u2014 and that\u2019s not the golden standard, I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lithuanian Defense Minister\u00a0Robertas Kaunas clarified on Thursday that his country \u201chas received no information from the United States regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lithuanian territory,\u201d but that they were \u201cpreviously informed of possible changes to the rotation in the U.S. presence in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARSAW, Poland \u2014 Poland and Lithuania are making clear their intention to aid American operations to reopen the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[648,14074,38,54,102,34,23718,1486,1403,6286,101],"class_list":["post-116070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-defense","tag-department-of-defense-department-of-war","tag-donald-trump","tag-europe","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-lithuania","tag-nato","tag-pentagon","tag-poland","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116581662901849741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}