Rūdninkai Training Area () is a

military facility A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, located southwest of

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

and from the border with

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. It is surrounded by Rūdninkai Forest, the fifth largest forest in Lithuania. It is part of a larger training complex encompassing about .

History

Established in 1948, during the

Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into three differe ...

, the area was used for training bomber crews. The facility was closed in 1993.

Unexploded ordnance Unexploded ordnance (UXO, sometimes abbreviated as UO) and unexploded bombs (UXBs) are explosive weapons (bombs, shell (projectile), shells, grenades, land mines, naval mines, cluster munition, and other Ammunition, munitions) that did not e ...

(UXO), usually air-dropped bombs weighing , are still discovered in the facility. The largest bomb, detonated in 2007, weighed . In 2008, Rūdninkai training area was the largest territory of 222 areas in Lithuania, covering a total of , that were still contaminated by unexploded ordnance. The training area was re-established in 2022. From 2025, the

Lithuanian Armed Forces The Lithuanian Armed Forces () are the military of Lithuania. The Lithuanian Armed Forces consist of the Lithuanian Land Forces, the Lithuanian Navy, the Lithuanian Air Force and the Lithuanian Special Operations Force. In wartime, the Li ...

will begin hosting the German

45th Panzer Brigade (Bundeswehr) The 45th Panzer Brigade (, abbreviated ''PzBrig 45''), also known as Lithuania Brigade () in German public discourse, is a brigade of the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). Once its formation is complete, the brigade will consist of 4,800 troops a ...

in Rūdninkai Training Area. In June 2025, the

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the 27 member states. It is the largest multilateral financial institution in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt sol ...

approved €540 million loan for the construction of a new military base in Rūdninkai.

References

Military of Lithuania Military installations established in 1948 1948 establishments in Lithuania {{Military-stub

History

See also

References