Vienna: Latvia and Ukraine plan to build a joint drone manufacturing facility in the Latgale region of eastern Latvia, near the country’s borders with both Russia and Belarus, Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said June 29 during a visit to a military base in the region.
The announcement gives operational shape to the so-called “Drone Deal” signed on June 9 between Kulbergs and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Nordic-Baltic Eight summit in Tallinn, the first meeting between the two leaders. Latvia is the sixth country to join Ukraine’s bilateral drone cooperation framework.
Under the agreement, Ukraine will supply Latvia with strike drones, ground robotic complexes, and maritime drone systems, while Latvia will supply Ukraine with domestically produced anti-drone systems, Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and his Latvian counterpart Raivis Melnis previously confirmed during a meeting in Kyiv on June 13. No specifics were offered.
The Latgale region, where the new drone factory is to be built, is historically one of Latvia’s most economically disadvantaged. Kulbergs said the area needs investment and jobs, and that his government would “do everything necessary” to site the plant near the Russian border. Construction should start this year.
Moscow has been publicly outraged at the Baltic states’ alleged role in Ukraine’s drone warfare against the Russian hinterland, accusing the three small republics of opening their airspaces to Ukrainian drones on their way to strike targets over a thousand kilometres from Kyiv in Russia’s Baltic region and the St. Petersburg area.
More outlandish Russian claims have even included accusations that the Baltic States are allowing Ukraine to launch drones from their territories. The Russian foreign intelligence service SVR, which is renowned for making unsubstantiated and wildly escalatory claims regularly, published a press release with this accusation earlier this year.
The opening of the drone production facility will surely face criticism from Moscow and is all but certain to be seen as an escalatory move. It may also strengthen Russian propaganda’s case for singling out the small Baltic states as particularly hostile − and a particularly urgent problem − for Moscow.
Key details − including the plant’s precise location, cost-sharing arrangements between Riga and Kyiv, and which drone types will be produced − have not been publicly disclosed.
In addition to the joint drone factory, the Latvian prime minister also announced that counter-drone systems will begin operating along Latvia’s borders with Russia and Belarus in July and August − removing the need, he said, to scramble fighter aircraft in response to every drone incursion. “In the event of a threat from drones, we won’t have to take aircraft into the air every time, which is a very expensive and effective solution, but not the best and most productive,” Kulbergs said.
A top Latvian official previously described a system of launch canisters stationed along the border.
The announcement comes against a fraught political backdrop in Riga. A suspected stray Ukrainian drone that entered Latvian airspace from Russia exploded at an oil storage facility in Rēzekne on May 7, damaging four empty fuel tanks. The incident triggered the resignation of both the defence minister and Prime Minister Evika Siliņa within days. Kulbergs took office shortly thereafter.
