Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that Canada will keep troops in Latvia through to 2029, as a part of a mission to discourage Russian aggression in Europe that has given Ottawa an outsized role within the transatlantic alliance.
“We must deter and fortify. And that’s the best way that we will provide true reassurance,” Carney said at a Tuesday news conference in Riga, flanked by Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina.
Carney’s office says there at the moment are 2,000 Canadian Armed Forces troops in Latvia as a part of Operation Reassurance, which is Canada’s largest overseas mission. Canadian troops have been there since 2017 to strengthen the defence of Europe’s eastern flank and to discourage Russian from invading Baltic countries, through what many call a “trip wire.”
The present authority for the mission ends in March 2026, but Carney says he plans to increase that by one other three years.
“We’ll in the method increase the brigade’s capabilities here in Latvia, reinforce our collective defence, strengthen our co-operative security, and keep the NATO presence strong,” Carney said.
Canada is co-ordinating the role of soldiers from roughly 10 countries in Latvia, to shore up the country’s defences and to coach Latvian soldiers, in accordance with Carleton University professor Stephen Saideman.
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“We’re punching above our weight,” he said in an interview. “We’re principally being treated by the remainder of NATO as equal to the U.K. and Germany,” who’re co-ordinating similar multinational brigades in Estonia and Lithuania respectively.
Ottawa goals to have a full cadre of two,200 persistently deployed Canadian troops in Latvia sometime in 2026, and has been constructing recent infrastructure on the Adazi base near Riga up to now two years to make up for overcrowding.
Canada occasionally has the total presence of two,200 troops for specific exercises, Saideman said.
He said Carney’s visit is probably going meant “to assist educate Canadians about this major commitment” and to place a face on the boost to defence spending that’s coming the expense of other services for Canadians.
“He is perhaps going there to indicate to Canada where the cash goes, and why the cash is essential,” he said.
Saideman added that the mission is especially complex as France would have likely led the mission, and Canada is as a substitute running a mission with smaller contingents from many countries, which requires more work to co-ordinate.
“We’re doing a complete lot that doesn’t necessarily get recognized back in Canada,” he said.
The mission began after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, and has taken on increased importance since Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier Tuesday, Carney said in Berlin that Russian President Vladimir Putin is afraid to sit down down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after U.S. President Donald Trump said the 2 should talk directly on learn how to end the war.
“We see President Putin putting conditions and conditions, and stalling and stalling, and being afraid of getting this meeting,” Carney said.
Marcus Kolga, a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said Canada’s mission in Latvia is a serious contribution.
“It’s probably one of the crucial vital international missions that we’ve been engaged in for the reason that liberation of the Netherlands in World War II,” he said.
“It allows them to go on living their lives normally, despite the fact that that threat is true at their doorstep,” he said, adding this is applicable to Latvians in addition to neighbouring Estonians and Lithuanians.
“It demonstrates that Canada is lively, and it won’t be pushed around by Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Global Affairs Canada’s profile on Latvia says each countries “share an in depth relationship grounded in shared fundamental values, comparable to support for democracy, human rights and the rules-based international order.”
Latvia has deep scars over violence meted out on the population each through the Nazi occupation and through Latvia’s time as a part of the Soviet Union.
—With files from Dylan Robertson in Ottawa
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