Spain adding missiles, troops to NATO Latvia mission

• Published date: 29 May 2022
• Publication title: LETA

MADRID, May 29 (LETA--AFP) - Spain is sending a battery of surface-to-air missiles and around 100 troops to the NATO forward presence mission in Latvia, joining some 500 compatriots already present in the Baltic state, newspaper El Pais reported Saturday.

The Spanish Defense Ministry "plans to deploy in Latvia a battery of surface-to-air NASAMS," or Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System, El Pais said.

"Our commitment to NATO is total," Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said in addressing the report.

"We have troops at the moment in Latvia and also in Lithuania, we have our ships in the Mediterranean," Robles said as she stressed Madrid's "maximum readiness" to step up its contribution to the Western military alliance's show of strength designed to deter potential Russian incursions into its former Soviet-era zone of influence.

Robles was speaking as she attended an armed forces day military...