TALLINN, ESTONIA – Ukraine has signed a drone deal with Latvia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday as he met with Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs on the sidelines of a summit between Ukraine and Nordic and Baltic states in the Estonian capital Tallinn.
Zelenskyy was meeting with prime ministers from the Nordic-Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Norway, shortly after returning from a meeting in London with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany who said they were ready to support ceasefire talks.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Europe was likely far from ready to act as a mediator in the Ukraine peace process. The U.S. was leading the talks to end the more than four-year-long war before the recent Iran conflict switched its focus.
“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,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
He gave no details of what the deal with Latvia entailed.
Kulbergs said the agreement would give Latvia technological know-how and co-production opportunities.
“We need to protect our skies, and nobody knows how to do that better than Ukraine,” he told a joint news conference with Zelenskyy and other leaders attending the summit, adding that drones were responsible for the vast majority of deaths of Russian troops in the Ukraine war.
The agreement foresees the “immediate” arrival of Ukrainian anti-drone combat unit experts in Latvia, Kulbergs said on X after the Tallinn summit.
“Its goal is to adopt Ukraine’s anti-drone expertise, technological solutions, and training from Ukrainian drone warriors in Latvia, as well as to develop joint production in the military industries of Latvia and Ukraine,” he said.
Since the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, Zelenskyy has managed to leverage Ukraine’s expertise in drone warfare into a series of successful diplomatic deals during visits to the Middle East and Europe.
Rustem Umerov, the chairman of Ukraine’s defense and security council, said Latvia is the sixth country to join Kyiv’s drone cooperation initiative.
Last month, Zelenskyy said nearly 20 countries were interested in drone deals with Ukraine.
“Ukraine is interested in ensuring that every region of Europe has sufficient protection against Russian threats,” Zelenskyy said on X.
The Baltic countries, which are all members of NATO, have seen several instances of drones entering their airspace in recent weeks, as Ukraine has stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian energy facilities. Ukraine has blamed the incidents on Russia affecting the drone paths with electronic warfare.
Responding to a question on such incidents during an earlier joint news conference with his Estonian counterpart, Alar Karis, Zelenskyy…
