A drone incursion this week in Latvia highlights the risk of grey-zone threats as fighting continues on in Ukraine against Russia. In the early hours of Thursday, 7 May, authorities identified several drones entering Latvian airspace coming from Russia. Two of the drones landed in eastern Latvian territory, and one of these crashed into an oil storage facility. According to a statement from the Ministry of Defence of Latvia, radars also identified a third drone that flew across Latvian airspace before turning around and returning to Russia. The second drone that landed in Latvia has not yet been located, with the search ongoing. No casualties have been reported.
The situation has spelled bad news for the country’s Minister for Defence, Andris Sprūds (pictured above), who is now under pressure to resign over the incident. He has been outspoken in the past about the importance of expanding Latvia’s next-generation defence, but critics have been quick to raise questions about why the UAVs were not intercepted in the first place, and how authorities responded to the drones once they were identified. The opposition has already initiated a vote for his resignation in the Saeima (parliament). Sprūds has stated that he will respect the decision of the Saeima if they choose to ask for his resignation.
His position has not been helped by the authorities changing the story around their response. Initially, they said that the drones were not shot down because “not every criteria was met” for intervention – namely, that it was unclear if civilians would be put in harm’s way if the drones were shot down. Then, the ministry walked that position back with a more unequivocal stance. “Drones must be shot down – that’s the responsibility of the head of the Armed Forces and myself, as the political leader,” Sprūds said.
The Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Siliņa, has stated that she is not happy with the handling of the situation, but she has not gone as far as to call for Sprūds’ resignation. The Ministry for Defence is currently working with the largest defence budget in Latvia’s history, €2.16 billion, some 4.91% of the GDP.
“A €2 billion budget demands a larger understanding of what will be expected from him,” said Siliņa.
Uncertain origins
The drones entered Latvia from Russia, and the drone that left Latvian airspace returned to Russian territory, but anything more specific on the origins of the drones has yet to be confirmed.
But it is not an isolated incident. In the past several months, there have been multiple occurrences of drone crash landings in Latvian territory. In several cases, they have proven to be Ukrainian drones en-route to Russia that have wandered off path and lost connectivity. In response to those incidents, the Minister for Defence explained that it must be understood that a war is ongoing, and because Latvia is relatively on the flight path, these sorts of events can happen. However, malicious actors have exploited the incidents to spread fake news to sow distrust of Ukraine.
The drone that crashed into the oil storage facility caused a fire, now extinguished. Experts believe that it could have been guided by AI, trained to target critical infrastructure.
“If a drone has lost its way, it does not distinguish whether the forest is on the Russian side of the border or the Latvian side. The artificial intelligence tools used in drones are not yet sufficiently developed,’ says Modris Kairšs, head of the Autonomous Systems Competence Centre of the National Armed Forces (NBS).
Technology isn’t living up to the promise
Members of the National Armed Forces have commented that one of the main challenges in combating drone airspace violations, as in this case, is identifying the drones in the first place.
The drones did not all enter Latvian airspace at the same time, and they were not all detected. The first one literally flew under the radar, despite Baltic airspace patrol missions being active and underway.
Traditional radar systems are built to detect larger objects flying at higher altitudes. Latvia has recently rebuilt its air defence system, including radar and acoustic systems. Karisš added that because of this, in the near future, anti-aircraft gun turrets, working in concert with the defence system, will be demonstrated. Similar systems are already in use in Ukraine.
The Commander of the Latvian National Armed Forces, Kaspars Pudāns, said that work is being done to equip every combat group with interceptor drones by the end of the month.
