Slovenia's Defence Minister Matej Tonin announced on Monday that his country plans to deploy 200 soldiers to Slovakia to strengthen NATO's presence in the east due to the Ukraine crisis as well as possibly including its troops in the EU mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“We are enhancing our presence in NATO missions. Currently, we have 50 soldiers in Latvia and that number will remain unchanged but we are negotiating the deployment of our troops to Slovakia. We have already adopted an internal decision in the regard and intend to deploy 200 soldiers to Slovakia,” Tonin said.

In an interview with POP-TV, Tonin added that he would discuss the details with his Slovakian counterpart this week and that he expected NATO’s special mission in Slovakia to be established by the summer.

According to Tonin, the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is deteriorating too and the EU’s Altea mission has been reinforced with an additional 500 soldiers, but Slovenian troops have not been deployed there yet.

It is necessary to be very cautious in Bosnia even though the tension there is still at the political level, said Tonin adding that he is pleased with the EU’s prompt response to reinforce its mission in Bosnia because the situation there could deteriorate even further.

Slovenian soldiers are not included among the 500 troops from EU countries recently deployed to Bosnia but they could join the mission later on, said Tonin.

“Some countries that are heavily burdened with the war in Ukraine and the refugee wave from that country, have appealed to us to take on some of their burden. We will discuss specific issues with Slovakia’s defence minister this week,” said Tonin.