Latvia's prime minister, Evika Siliņa, resigned after sharp criticism over how her government handled drone incursions and the delayed alerts sent to the public. The move comes after two suspected Ukrainian drones entered Latvia on 7 May, one of them crashing at a fuel storage facility.
Siliņa said she was frustrated by the response to the incident and by the late warnings issued to residents. Her resignation closes a brief but serious political crisis that grew out of a single border breach and turned into a broader test of how Latvia handles airborne threats.
At the time of the incidents, Latvia's defence minister, Andris Sprūds, said the drones were likely Ukrainian drones aimed at Russia that had ended up in Latvia by mistake. But the explanation did little to quiet critics, who argued the episode showed weaknesses in Latvia's ability to respond to military threats. Since March, multiple Ukrainian drones headed for Russia had crossed into the territory of the three Baltic countries, making this latest case part of a wider pattern rather than an isolated mistake.
The pressure on Riga is rising at the same time Russia continues to strike Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said overnight attacks caused damage in Kyiv and other regions, with around 40 people injured in the capital and another seven in the wider Kyiv region, 28 injured in Kharkiv and two in the Odesa region. He said 180 sites had been damaged nationwide, including more than 50 ordinary residential buildings, and called for a just response, stronger sanctions on Moscow and sustained international pressure.
For Latvia, Siliņa's resignation leaves the government to answer the question her critics were already pressing: whether it can warn people faster and respond more convincingly the next time a drone crosses the border. The political cost of the May breach has already been paid once; the security test it exposed is still there.
