The Lithuanian defense contractor UAB Lithuania Defence Services has signed a contract with the construction company YIT Lietuva for the construction of a tank assembly and repair plant within the Kaunas Free Economic Zone, Lithuanian media reported on Monday.
“Construction is scheduled to begin in August of this year and be completed in November 2027,” the report states.
The first tank assembled in Lithuania is expected to roll off the plant’s assembly line in late 2028.
“The 13,000-square-meter plant will become one of the most important elements of Lithuania’s defense industry infrastructure—in the future, the state-of-the-art Leopard 2A8 tanks and other heavy equipment of the Lithuanian Armed Forces will be assembled and maintained here. The total cost of the project is approximately EUR29 million,” the statement added.
As previously reported, at the end of 2025, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense and the republic’s state-owned energy holding company EPSO-G, on the one hand, and the German companies KNDS Deutschland and Rheinmetall Landsysteme, on the other, signed a memorandum of understanding on industrial cooperation in the development of infrastructure for the assembly and maintenance of Leopard 2A8 tanks.
