Latvia’s Ministry of Defence reports that on Monday, the 10th of July, Minister of Defence Ināra Mūrniece and her Canadian colleague Anita Anand “signed a roadmap, underlining accomplishments so far and listing future steps” for efforts to increase the Canadian-led NATO battle group in Latvia to the size of a brigade.
On Monday Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkēvičs met with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Riga Castle. The president thanked the Canadian PM for deploying troops in the country and expressed Latvia’s readiness to “continue efforts to expand the presence of NATO troops and progress towards the formation of a combat-capable brigade”.
As reported by the State President’s Chancellery, during the meeting the two officials discussed their respective countries support provided to Ukraine, as well as cooperation in the field of economics, especially innovations, high technologies and investments.
The Ministry of Defence reports that on Monday, a day before the NATO summit in Vilnius, during his official visit to Latvia, the Canadian PM and Minister of Defence met with Latvia’s PM Krišjānis Kariņš and Minister of Defence Ināra Mūrniece. Additionally, during this visit Canadian and Latvian officials visited Ādaži military base, which is where the NATO expanded presence group is stationed.
As previously reported, at the NATO summit in Madrid last year, Latvian and Canadian ministers of defence signed a joint declaration about the increase of the Canadian-led NATO expanded battle group in Latvia from a battalion to a brigade. Canada is also committed to stationing 15 Leopard 2 tanks with support crew in Latvia this year.
It is planned to reach a brigade-level readiness by the year 2026.
Latvia affirms its commitment to investing resources towards raising national armed forces’ combat capabilities and ensuring support for allies as a host country. This includes creating a new military base.
Canada is in charge of NATO’s expanded presence combat group in Latvia, which has been stationed in the country since 2017. Currently NATO forces in Latvia consist of more than 1 700 troops from Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Canada, Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Iceland and North Macedonia, which perform their duties on a rotating basis.
The battle group stationed in Latvia is the most multi-national NATO military unit.
Latvian Ministry of Defence stressed in its announcement: Canada is a close ally to Latvia, and the two share close ties. Canada was one of the first NATO countries that ratified Latvia’s entrance to the alliance in 2004.
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