Inside Latvia’s foreign policy.

Latvia’s foreign policy is hard-edged, Atlanticist, and explicitly threat-driven by Russia. The state’s current posture is set less by abstract “Europeanism” than by the survival tier of the interests pyramid: deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank, support for Ukraine, resilience against hybrid attacks, and legal non-recognition of Russian territorial revisionism Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Annual Report by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the accomplishments and further action in national foreign policy and on the accomplished and planned action in European Union matters NATO, Relations with Latvia. Decision-making sits primarily with the cabinet and foreign ministry under a parliamentary system, but on foreign and security policy there is unusually broad elite consensus across the presidency, Saeima, and major governing parties; that continuity survived the June 2026 government change that brought Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs into office after parliamentary approval on 3 June 2026 Ministru kabinets, Government led by Andris Kulbergs assumes office Saeima of the Republic of Latvia. President Edgars Rinkēvičs remains an influential foreign-policy actor because of his long tenure as foreign minister and his constitutional role in representing the state internationally President of Latvia Constitution of the Republic of Latvia.

Latvia’s doctrine is anchored in the EU and NATO, but its operational instinct is Nordic-Baltic and transatlantic. Membership in NATO, the European Union, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations gives Riga institutional depth, yet the alliances that matter most in practice are the Baltic trio, the Nordic-Baltic Eight format, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Poland for deterrence and military presence European Union, Latvia NATO, Allied Air Command Baltic Air Policing Government of Canada, Operation REASSURANCE in Latvia. Latvia has pushed for a stronger forward defence model on the eastern flank and hosts allied forces under NATO arrangements, reflecting a view that reassurance without permanent readiness is insufficient against Russia’s military behavior in the region NATO, NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia. Economically, the hierarchy is lower-tier but still important: Latvia’s trade and regulatory orientation is overwhelmingly European through the single market, while energy policy since 2022 has been recast around decoupling from Russian supply and integrating with Baltic and wider European infrastructure European Commission, Latvia in the EU Conexus Baltic Grid European Commission, REPowerEU.

Bilateral relationships follow that same hierarchy. Russia is the principal adversarial relationship, defined by deterrence, sanctions, border security, and active resistance to Kremlin influence operations rather than by any expectation of normalization in the near term Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Annual Report by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the accomplishments and further action in national foreign policy and on the accomplished and planned action in European Union matters European Council, EU sanctions against Russia explained. Ukraine is the clearest positive priority: Latvia has been among the strongest per-capita backers of military, political, and reconstruction support, because Kyiv’s defense is treated in Riga as part of Latvia’s own security perimeter rather than a separate solidarity file Government of Latvia, Support to Ukraine Kiel Institute, Ukraine Support Tracker. Relations with Estonia and Lithuania are structurally close on defence, energy, and infrastructure, though the three Baltics do not always move at identical speed on practical issues such as transport links, electricity synchronization, and border-control implementation Baltic Assembly European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, Baltic synchronisation. Ties with the United States and Canada are strategic because they convert Article 5 from a legal guarantee into visible military presence; ties with the UK have also deepened through northern European security cooperation U.S. Department of State, U.S. Relations With Latvia Government of Canada, Latvia UK Government, UK and Latvia relations.

At the UN, Latvia votes with the EU and wider Western coalition on the central files that define its worldview: Ukraine’s territorial integrity, human rights scrutiny of Russia and Belarus, sanctions-related norm defense, and support for the rules-based interpretation of sovereignty United Nations Digital Library, voting records UN General Assembly, ES-11 resolutions on Ukraine. Its diplomatic style is legalistic and norm-forward, but the behavior behind the language is unusually hawkish for an EU member state. Riga consistently favors harder formulations on accountability for Russian war crimes, tighter sanctions implementation, and restrictions on Russian state-linked presence in Europe, often aligning more closely with Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and the Nord