Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics has nominated opposition lawmaker Andris Kulbergs to become the country’s next prime minister, following the resignation of Evika Silina over the government’s handling of Ukrainian drone incursions.
Rinkevics said Saturday that, in light of recent events, Latvia’s next head of government should come from the opposition. Kulbergs leads the United List, a bloc of smaller parties that forms the largest opposition grouping in parliament. He will take office only if lawmakers approve his proposed cabinet.
“The president has given me 10 days,” Kulbergs told reporters, saying he would try to form an “enlarged coalition” capable of governing until parliamentary elections scheduled for October 3.
Silina resigned Thursday after losing the support of the Progressives, her left-leaning coalition partner. The crisis began when she dismissed Defence Minister Andris Spruds after two Ukrainian drones entered Latvia from Russia and struck an oil storage facility, prompting criticism that anti-drone systems had not been deployed quickly enough.
The May 7 incident was the latest in a series of drone breaches affecting Latvia and other Baltic NATO members since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Officials said one of the drones crashed into a fuel storage site in eastern Latvia, causing a fire that was quickly contained.
Silina said the incidents showed that the political leadership of the defence sector had failed to deliver “safe skies” for Latvia. But Spruds’s Progressives party opposed his dismissal and withdrew from the coalition, leaving Silina without a governing majority.
Ukraine has sought to reassure Latvia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after speaking with Rinkevics that Kyiv would send Ukrainian experts to help strengthen Latvia’s air defences.
Kulbergs now faces the difficult task of assembling a parliamentary majority in a tense security environment. The next government will have to restore political stability, accelerate air-defence readiness and manage the spillover risks from the war in Ukraine while preparing the country for elections later this year.
