Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed Tuesday that the Ukrainian military plans to use Latvian territory as a launching ground for its ongoing drone attacks against Russia, an allegation that officials in the Baltic country quickly dismissed.
In a statement, the SVR accused Latvia’s government of agreeing to let Ukraine fire drones from inside the country “despite… fears of becoming a target for retaliatory strikes by Moscow.”
“The primitive Russophobia of Latvia’s current rulers proved stronger than their capacity for critical thinking or their sense of self-preservation,” the agency said.
Russia’s SVR claimed that Ukrainian drone unit troops had already been deployed to five Latvian military bases.
In a thinly-veiled threat, the agency said the locations of Latvia’s “decision-making centers are well-known” to Russia and that its NATO membership “will not protect the accomplices of terrorists from just retribution.”
Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže accused the SVR of running a disinformation campaign against her country, whose prime minister resigned last week after Ukrainian drones strayed into Latvia’s airspace and crashed.
“Russia lies again,” Braže wrote in a post on X. “Latvia does NOT provide airspace for attacks on Russia. That has been explained several times to Russian representatives.”
Several Russian and Ukrainian drones have crashed in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Drone crashes in Latvia in late March and early May caused some damage but did not injure anyone.
