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The Lithuanian government hopes to sign an agreement with the United States in September on the acquisition of six Black Hawk military helicopters.
This was announced this week by the Minister of National Defense, Raimundas Karoblis, after a meeting with a senior Pentagon official who visited Lithuania.
“Negotiations are underway and we look forward to concluding negotiations and signing contracts in September for the renewal of Black Hawk helicopters,” Karoblis told reporters after a meeting with the Secretary of the United States Ground Forces, Ryan D. McCarthy. .
Helicopter sales began to be coordinated by US authorities this month. The deal has already been approved by the State Department and still needs approval from Congress.
The Pentagon Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has announced that the value of the deal will be $ 380 million. USD (337 million euros).
However, Lithuania’s Minister of National Defense announced that the US part of the agreement would be funded by the US government.
“We thank the United States for its support in accelerating this process and for the $ 30 million allocated to the United States for the implementation of this project,” said R. Karoblis.
The Lithuanian Armed Forces announced their intentions to purchase new UH-60M Black Hawk military helicopters in October last year. Then it was announced that the planned acquisition value is approximately 300 million. euros
The commander of the Lithuanian armed forces, Lt. Gen. Valdemaras Rupšys, told BNS last week that helicopters should arrive in Lithuania in 2024.
Currently, the Lithuanian Armed Forces use Soviet Mi-8 helicopters, their flight resources will soon be exhausted and three AS365 N3 + Dauphin, which are mainly used for search and rescue operations and environmental monitoring in the territory of Lithuania.
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