President Volodymyr Zelensky announced signing a drone deal with Latvia on Tuesday, June 9th.
The reported arms procurement plan was set in motion when Zelensky met Latvia’s Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs in Tallinn, Estonia as part of a summit between Ukraine and Nordic and Baltic states.
Taking to social media, Zelensky declared
These are concrete things to strengthen our joint defense and co-production, and, importantly, this also means Ukraine’s expertise and experience helping to strengthen our partners.
Kulbergs told a joint press conference with Zelensky that the agreement would boost Latvia technologically and economically, as well as militarily:
We need to protect our skies, and nobody knows how to do that better than Ukraine.
In addition to any additional protections this would afford Ukraine against its Russian foe, the initiative fits with Kyiv’s stated aim of becoming a European arms production hub.
According to Ukraine’s defence and security council chairman Rustem Umerov, Latvia is the sixth country to join Kyiv’s drone cooperation initiative.
