Lithuania to call up 2,400 reserve soldiers for Perkūno griausmas exercise

Lithuania will begin its Perkūno griausmas 2026 armed defence exercise on Thursday, testing the readiness of military headquarters and units and calling up as many as 2,400 active reserve soldiers, LRT reports.

The exercise will run through September and October. More than 5,000 additional reserve soldiers will be contacted to update their contact details and other necessary information.

“The main goal of the exercise will be to train the transition from peacetime to a crisis situation, activate peacetime task units, strengthen border areas and critical infrastructure, and activate rapid-response standby units to neutralise asymmetric threats,” Giedrius Premeneckas, chief of the Lithuanian Armed Forces Defence Staff, said while presenting the exercise on Tuesday.

The mobilisation phase will focus on making the process faster and smoother, ensuring that reserve databases are accurate and that soldiers know which units they must report to, when they must arrive and what they must bring. The procedures will include health and security checks.

Military commandant offices will also be activated. Military commandants in assigned municipalities will practise coordinating with Lithuanian Armed Forces units and other institutions.

The exercise is intended to replicate real crisis conditions as closely as possible and test actions that could be needed during an actual crisis. Its main objective is to prepare for armed defence across the country by synchronising the actions of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, state institutions, municipalities and allies.

Premeneckas stressed that the exercise had been planned in advance and was not a direct response to the current increase in threat levels or hybrid activity by hostile states.

The exercises will focus primarily on operational-level decision-making and coordination between headquarters. The military will also use the exercise to test new technologies and tactical methods.

There may be more military units on the roads during the exercise, as some land forces and rapid-response units will carry out tasks near critical infrastructure and border posts.

BNS reported that an unmanned aerial vehicle that entered Lithuania from Belarus on Tuesday night was shot down near the Kruonis Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant in the Kaišiadorys district by Italian fighter jets stationed in Šiauliai.