Latvia plans to invest €20 million ($22 million) in the development of military drones, Defence Minister Andris Sprūds said in Riga on Monday.
"Metaphorically, we could speak of a drone army," Sprūds added. The investment will go creating infrastructure as well as to the purchase of drones, some of them from Latvian companies.
"We are strengthening the entire ecosystem and at the same time our own industry, which is able to create, develop and manufacture these technologies for our armed forces and for supporting Ukraine," he said.
A drone testing ground is to go into operation at the Selonia military training area in the summer, and drone pilots are to be trained at various levels in the defence sector. An ideas hackathon under the rubric "Drones for Ukraine" is to be held at the end of the month.
Latvia and the United Kingdom are the lead countries in a partnership planning to supply a million drones to Ukraine. The more than a dozen members, including Germany, have pledged to invest in the production of drones and to supply drones and spare parts to Ukraine.