Latvia’s former defence minister Andris Sprūds told Euronews there is no “silver bullet” for stopping rogue drones, insisting he had been “realistic” about the limits of Latvia’s air defence after a week of political tensions leading to the resignation of the Prime Minister.
“I have always said that it is difficult to deal with drones which have lost their trajectory,” he told the Europe Today programme.
Sprūds resigned on Sunday after Latvia’s Prime Minister Evika Siliņa demanded he step down over a major security breach and the political firestorm that followed.
Last Thursday, several drones entered Latvian airspace and crashed in the eastern Latgale region, near the communities of Balvi and Ludza, close to the Russian border. One drone struck an oil storage facility, sparking a small fire.
No civilians were injured, but residents complained that emergency alerts arrived nearly an hour after the incident.
