Latvian prime minister resigns after drone incident

Latvian centre-right Prime Minister Evika Silina has announced her resignation, after the Progressives Party, her left-leaning coalition partner, pulled support from the government and left her without a majority.

“I ⁠am resigning, but I am not giving up,” Silina, who has been prime minister since 2023, said in a televised statement on Thursday.

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Her resignation came days after Latvia’s Defence Minister Andris Spruds, from the Progressives Party, was forced to resign over the government’s handling of several incidents involving stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine crossing into Latvian territory. Silina said at the time that Spruds had lost her trust and that of the public.

The drone incidents “clearly demonstrated that the political leadership of the defence sector has failed to fulfil its promise of safe skies over our country”, Silina said on Sunday, explaining Spruds’s resignation.

On May 7, two suspected Ukrainian drones entered Latvia, one of them crashing at a fuel storage facility. Multiple Ukrainian drones headed for Russia have hit Baltic countries since March, as well as several other European countries since the Ukraine war started. The incidents have led to domestic criticism of Baltic nations’ abilities to respond to military threats.

Silina’s resignation comes just months before general elections due in October. Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, tasked with appointing a new head of government, is set to meet with representatives of parliamentary parties on Friday.

“My priority has always been, and remains, the well-being and security of Latvia’s people,” Silina wrote on X on Thursday. “Parties and coalitions change, but Latvia endures. And my responsibility to society comes above all else.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha offered to help the Baltic states and Finland to prevent such incidents in the future. He said on Sunday the incidents in Latvia were “the result of Russian electronic warfare deliberately diverting Ukrainian drones from their targets in Russia”

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