Ukraine, Latvia sign drone deal, Zelensky says

TALLINN - Ukraine has signed a drone deal with Latvia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 9 as he met Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs on the sidelines of a summit between Ukraine and Nordic and Baltic states in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

“These are concrete things to strengthen our joint defence and co-production, and, importantly, this also means Ukraine’s expertise and experience helping to strengthen our partners,” Zelensky said in a post on X.

He gave no details of what the deal 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 press conference with Zelensky and other leaders attending the summit, adding that drones were responsible for the vast majority of deaths of Russian troops in the Ukraine war.

Since the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, Zelensky 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 defence and security council, said Latvia was the sixth country to join Kyiv’s drone cooperation initiative.

In May, Zelensky 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,” Zelensky 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 press conference with his Estonian counterpart Alar Karis, Zelensky repeated that Ukraine was sending its experts to help protect the skies of its close partners. REUTERS