Evika Silina resigns after three drones enter Latvian airspace
Latvian Prime Minister evika silina resigned on Thursday after a coalition crisis triggered by three drones that entered Latvian airspace on 7 May. Her departure ended a government she had led since 2023, and the collapse of the coalition now puts Latvia on course to form a new cabinet months before October’s general election.
Riga and eastern Latvia
Silina fired Defence Minister Andris Spruds last week after two drones crashed down in eastern Latvia, and Spruds’s Progressives party responded by pulling support for the governing coalition. One drone crashed on the ground, another struck an empty oil product storage facility near Rezekne, and the third flew in and out of Latvian airspace.
There were no casualties or injuries. Local residents said the official response had been delayed and insufficient, and they said the cell broadcast alert system had not been activated for an hour after one of the drones crashed near Rezekne.
Silina and Spruds
Silina said after the incident that “Something went wrong. We cannot afford for this situation to continue.” She also said she had asked Spruds to resign because of the situation in the Latvian defence sector as a whole. On Thursday, she added, “I am resigning but I am not giving up.”
Silina also linked the crisis to Latvia’s defence posture, saying the country’s spending of 5% of GDP on national defence created a “much higher level of responsibility toward society... that requires clear results.”
Latvia’s next government
The drone incident was the second such accident since the start of 2026. Both Latvia and Ukraine acknowledged that the drones may have been Ukrainian UAVs intended to target Russia whose signals had been jammed, placing the episode inside the wider war around Latvia’s border without resolving who controlled the drones at the moment they crossed into Latvian territory.
President Edgars Rinkevics said he would take a decision on the quickest possible formation of a new government on 15 May. Silina was appointed Latvia’s prime minister in September 2023, and her government had been steadfast in its support of Ukraine against Russia while Latvia also reintroduced compulsory military service a year after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
