Riga’s political landscape shifted abruptly this week when Prime Minister Evika Siliņa stepped down. The trigger was a loss of parliamentary majority in the Saeima, Latvia’s 100-seat parliament. Disagreements over how to handle Ukrainian drone incursions into Latvian airspace fractured the coalition. On May 14, a day after the majority evaporated, Siliņa resigned.
The drones were the breaking point. But the deeper story is about geography and fear. Latvia is a small country. Population: 1.83 million. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast. Those are not abstract lines on a map. They are the front edge of NATO’s eastern flank. For decades, the Kremlin has viewed NATO’s expansion into the Baltics as a provocation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made that opposition clear and consistent.
Siliņa’s government had been walking a tightrope. It needed to show resolve against Russian aggression while keeping a coalition together. The drone incursions—apparently launched from Ukraine, not Russia—complicated that. Some coalition partners wanted a stronger public response. Others wanted to avoid escalation. The coalition splintered. The majority collapsed.
This is not the first time a Baltic government has fallen over security policy. But the timing matters. Latvia is a NATO member, joined in 2004. That membership is its core security guarantee. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has publicly stated the alliance remains committed to supporting Latvia and the other Baltic states in strengthening their defenses. The U.S. has been a key partner. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stressed the need for close U.S.-Latvia cooperation on regional stability.
Yet words are one thing. Hardware and troops are another. The U.S. and its allies have been working to increase their military presence in the region. The AUKUS security pact—a trilateral agreement between the U.S., the UK, and Australia—is part of that broader effort to counterbalance Russian and Chinese power. But for Latvia, the immediate threat is not in the Indo-Pacific. It is on its own eastern border.
Siliņa’s resignation leaves a vacuum at a tense moment. The next government will have to rebuild a majority and decide how to handle the drone issue. It will also have to manage relations with NATO allies who are watching the Baltic region closely. Russia has been accused of trying to destabilize the area. A political crisis in Riga, however brief, does not help.
The Saeima now faces the task of forming a new government. That process is rarely quick. In the meantime, Latvia operates with a caretaker cabinet. Decisions on defense and diplomacy will be made, but without the full authority of a confirmed prime minister. That is a dangerous position for a country that sits next to a war zone.
Ukrainian drone incursions into Latvian airspace are a new and unsettling development. They show how the war in Ukraine spills over borders, even unintentionally. They test alliances. They break coalitions. And they remind everyone in the Baltics that geography is not just a fact—it is a threat.
