From 27 to 29 January 2026, NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) Chief of Staff, Major General Krzysztof Kociuba, visited NCIA's facilities in Portugal.
Major General Kociuba's visit began at the CIS Support Unit (CSU) Lisbon at the Reduto Gomes Freire base in Oeiras. Under the leadership of Commander Pedro Pinheiro, who assumed his position in October 2025, CSU Lisbon provides CIS support to the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC), in Monsanto, Lisbon, as well as to Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO), and a number of national entities co-located in the base. The Chief of Staff met with CSU leadership, including Commander Pinheiro, to discuss the CSU’s work facilitating NATO and Allied exercises, building out cutting edge infrastructure for the storing, synthesizing, and sharing classified information, and rolling out next generation CIS equipment to personnel.
Major General Kociuba also visited NATO Satellite Ground Station (F12) in Fonte da Telha, Lisbon, one of facilities that ‘anchor’ satellite constellations to terrestrial networks. NCIA’s technicians maintain the infrastructure that provides NATO decision-makers and warfighters with resilient, flexible and secure satellite communications (SATCOM) capabilities to stay connected and operate coherently across domains.
Last but not least, the Major General Kociuba visited NCIA's training facilities in Oeiras, Portugal. The NCI Academy is NATO’s leading training institution for communications and information systems, command and control, cyber security, and disruptive technologies. During the visit, the Chief of Staff met with Academy Director, Yannick Lemieux, who was appointed to the post in November 2025. Lemieux leads the Academy after a distinguished 33 years of operational and educational experience in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Chief of Staff also used the opportunity to meet with senior Academy leadership and the Security Office, they discussed the resilience and readiness of the Academy’s organizational posture for crisis or conflict.