Duda in Szczecin to meet with NATO troops

Polish President Andrzej Duda was in the northwestern Polish city of Szczecin on Monday in order to speak to the multi-national defense force stationed there, and also to meet with German president Joachim Gauck, according to reports in the Polish press. The president met with the honor guard, spoke with some soldiers and also went into the barracks. After a series of exercises in 2016, Szczecin Corps, one of several units of NATO troops stationed across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, is – according to press reports – ready to rapidly deploy forces in the event of a territorial incursion by neighboring Russia. The Szczecin deployment is currently undergoing a transformation that has seen its number of troops double to 400. In total, NATO has several thousand troops conducting exercises across the Baltic region.