Latvia: Prime Minister resigns after political crisis linked to Ukrainian drone incursions

AA / Istanbul / Serap Dogansoy

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina announced her resignation this Thursday after the breakup of her government coalition, weakened by controversy surrounding several Ukrainian drone incursions on Latvian territory.

“I announce my resignation from the post of Prime Minister,†declared the leader during a press conference in Riga, while her center-right government, in power since 2023, lost its majority in Parliament after the withdrawal of the Progressives party.

The political crisis was triggered by criticism of the management of several intrusions by Russian and Ukrainian drones into Latvian airspace since the start of the war in Ukraine.

On May 7, two Ukrainian drones crossed the Russian border before crashing in Latvia, probably after their guidance system was jammed by Russian electronic defenses, according to kyiv.

One of the devices hit an oil storage site in Rezekne, in the east of the country, causing a fire which was quickly brought under control by emergency services. Another Ukrainian drone had already crashed on Latvian territory on March 25.

These incidents caused no casualties or major damage, but they relaunched questions about the air defense capabilities of this Baltic NATO member country.

Evika Silina had called for the resignation of Defense Minister Andris Spruds, believing that anti-drone systems had not been deployed quickly enough.

“This week’s drone incident clearly demonstrated that the political leadership of the defense sector has failed to keep its promise to ensure the security of the skies above our country,†she said.

The Minister of Defense, a member of the Progressives party, finally resigned on Monday, but his party accused the head of government of having used him as a political “fuse” before withdrawing his support for the coalition.

With the departure of the nine progressive deputies, the Silina government only had 41 seats out of 100 in Parliament, compared to 47 for the opposition.

In this context, Latvia and Lithuania have called on NATO to strengthen air defense systems in the Baltic States, while several Russian and Ukrainian drones have already crashed in the region since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Following a meeting with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the sending of Ukrainian experts to Latvia to help Riga strengthen the protection of its airspace.

kyiv also wishes to sign a cooperation agreement with Latvia called the “Drone Deal†, intended to develop a multi-layer air defense system against different air threats.