Baltic Naval Squadron

Baltic Naval Squadron
Lineup	June 12, 1998
Country	Estonia Latvia Lithuania; ;
Association	multinational naval association
Branch of service	Mine defense
Subordinate troops	3–6 ships
commander
COMBALTRON	Andrius Širvys

The Baltic Naval Squadron ( BALTRON ) is a trinational naval association of the Baltic states of Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania for the Baltic Sea.

history

In 1995 the Baltic naval forces carried out the first joint exercise "Amber Sea 95" and considerations for further cooperation arose.

On October 12, 1996, the defense ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania agreed to set up a joint mine sweeping unit for their naval forces. On April 16, 1998, the governments of the Baltic States signed in Riga the official commissioning of the association for August 28, 1998 with headquarters in Tallinn .

On June 12, 1998 in Brussels the Baltic states agreed to support the trinational Baltic mine sweeping association with the NATO member states Belgium , Denmark , Germany , Great Britain , the Netherlands and Norway as well as Finland , Poland (since 1999 NATO member) and Sweden . with the German Navy taking over the overall coordination.

In October 2000, Germany delivered two Lindau-class anti-mine vehicles to Estonia ( in service there as Sulev and Wambola ). Denmark delivered the command and lead ship Admiral Pitka of the Hvidbjørnen class to the Estonian Navy . The naval forces of Latvia and Lithuania received support in the same or a similar manner . In September 2001 a training center for marine divers in Liepāja , Latvia, was put into service.

In 2015, Estonia withdrew from the joint sea operations in the area of mine defense in order to focus exclusively on operations under NATO command in the future. Latvia and Lithuania and have continued the fleet maneuvers alone since then.

organization

The Baltic Naval Squadron, BALTRON for short, consists of a mine defense unit, each of which remains in service for at least 6 months and is led by a trinational staff of the Baltic armed forces in Tallinn (Estonia). The aim is to improve coordination between the navies of the states, to carry out joint mine clearance and, initially, to strengthen cooperation with the NATO states, which promoted the admission of the Baltic states as member states to NATO in 2004.

BALTRON consists of a joint staff of the Baltic States and ships of the navies of Estonia (until the withdrawal in 2015), Latvia and Lithuania. Each state assigns one to two anti-mine vehicles to BALTRON . An additional ship takes on the tasks of a command and support platform. The Naval Union's communication language is English.

BALTRON works closely with the NATO mine sweeping associations and takes part in the international "Open Spirit" mine defense missions.

Calls

According to the objectives of the establishment of BALTRON, the main task is the establishment of a minesweeping association which is to operate in the territorial waters of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The participating states are therefore carrying out mine clearance operations in the waters of the Baltic states. In the course of these operations, mines , grenades and torpedoes from the time of the last two world wars are tracked down, collected and destroyed.

BALTRON must be capable of the following tasks:

Ground mines and naval mines by means of sonar and ROV track
Clear ground mines
Perform surface and anti-aircraft shooting
Training of seamanship and maneuvering
Search and rescue operations
Training of ship safety at sea and in ports
Perform diving operations
Recording of the maritime situation in connection with coastal surveillance stations of the Baltic states

Maneuvers and operations

The following maneuvers and operations take place annually in the waters of the Baltic States:

MCOP - anti-mine action
Open Spirit - mine defense operations and maneuvers
Amber Sea - Baltic Naval Maneuvers

Commanders (COMBALTRON)

1998–1999: Ilmārs Lešinskis (Latvia)
1999–2000: Juozas Alsauskas (Lithuania)
2000–2001: Andrejs Zvaigzne (Latvia)
2001–2002: Igor Schvede (Estonia)
2002–2003: Artūras Andrušaitis (Lithuania)
2003-2004: Ainars Filipovics (Latvia)
2004–2005: Sten Sepper (Estonia)
2005–2006: Artūras Andrušaitis (Lithuania)
2006–2007: Juris Roze (Latvia)
2007–2008: Andrei Leit (Estonia)
2008–2009: Eugenijus Valikovas (Lithuania)
2009: Maris Polenc (Latvia)
2010: Indrek Hanson (Estonia)
2011: Andrius Širvys (Lithuania)
2012: Dmitrijs Jankovs (Latvia)
2013: Egidijus Oleskevicius (Lithuania)
2014: Tarmo Sepp (Estonia)
2015: Janis Auce (Latvia)
2016: Tadas Jablonskis (Lithuania)
2017: Kaspars Miezitis (Latvia)
2018: Audrius Venckūnas (Lithuania)
2019: Armands Grebežs (Latvia)
current: Andrius Širvys (Lithuania)

Web links

Information on BALTRON on the Estonian Armed Forces website
Publication for the 15th anniversary of Baltron , PDF file, accessed on August 3, 2014

Individual evidence

↑ Message on the website of the Lithuanian Armed Forces of January 8, 2020, accessed on January 9, 2020 (Lithuanian)
↑ Online message on "the baltic course" of 9 January 2015 accessed on 24 April 2015 (English)
↑ Message on the website of the Lithuanian Navy from April 22, 2015, accessed on April 24, 2015 (English)

[1] Message on the website of the Lithuanian Armed Forces of January 8, 2020, accessed on January 9, 2020 (Lithuanian)

[2] Online message on "the baltic course" of 9 January 2015 accessed on 24 April 2015 (English)

[3] Message on the website of the Lithuanian Navy from April 22, 2015, accessed on April 24, 2015 (English)