Latvian President Backs Opposition Leader Kulbergs for Prime Minister After Drone Incident

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics has backed opposition lawmaker Andris Kulbergs to replace Evika Silina for the top job after the prime minister resigned over an incident involving Ukrainian drones.

Kulbergs, leader of the United List of smaller parties, which forms the largest opposition bloc in parliament, will take office if lawmakers approve him and his cabinet.

“Considering recent events, I think the new prime minister should come from opposition parties,” President Rinkevics told a news conference on Saturday.

Last weekend, the former Prime Minister Silina fired her defence minister, Andris Spruds, after two Ukrainian drones strayed into Latvia from Russia and exploded at an oil storage facility.

The incident is only the latest in a series of such events in NATO members Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

The drone incidents “clearly demonstrated that the political leadership of the defence sector has failed to fulfil its promise of safe skies over our country”, Silina said when explaining Spruds’s forced resignation.

In the following days, The Progressives party, Silina’s left-leaning coalition partner, pulled support from the government and left her without a majority. “I ⁠am resigning, but I am not giving up,” Silina said in a televised statement on Thursday, announcing her resignation.

Silina had been the prime minister since 2023.

President Rinkevics settled on Kulbergs after meeting representatives from all the parties in parliament, reported the Reuters news agency.

The president told reporters he had invited Kulbergs to form a government. If Kulbergs were to succeed, the cabinet lineup would still need to be approved by the parliament.

Kulbergs said he hoped to create an “enlarged coalition” to administer Latvia until parliamentary elections are held on October 3.

“The president has given me 10 days,” he told reporters on Saturday.

Earlier, on May 7, two Ukrainian drones flew over from Russia, with one of them crashing into a petrol depot in the east of Latvia, causing a fire that was quickly contained.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after speaking with Rinkevics at a summit in Romania on Wednesday that he would send Ukrainian experts to Latvia to help it boost its air defences.