![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP22222373101850.jpg.jpg\")
Austin\u2019s visit comes as the Russian war in Ukraine is in its sixth month, as Russia continues to make slow but incremental progress but has met growing counterattacks by Ukrainian forces in Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine. Ukraine has also been battling to hold off the Kremlin\u2019s forces in the industrial Donbas region in the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a possible escalation of the fighting, powerful explosions rocked a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday and sent towering clouds of smoke over the landscape. Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry denied the Saki base on the Black Sea had been shelled and said instead that munitions had blown up there. But Ukrainian social networks were abuzz with speculation that it was hit by Ukrainian-fired long-range missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a rapid-fire series of meetings on Wednesday with top Latvian leaders, including President Egils Levits at Riga Castle, Austin pledged America\u2019s steadfast commitment to stand with the Baltic region against any Russian aggression. The three Baltic nations – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – are all former Soviet republics, and were seized and annexed by Josef Stalin during World War II . They gained independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and joined NATO in 2004, putting themselves under the military protection of the U.S. and its Western allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will enhance our rotational deployments in the region and intensify our training with our Baltic allies to further strengthen our combat credible posture in the region,\u201d Austin said, as the start of his meeting with Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krisjanis Karins at the Council of Ministers on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the press conference, Pabriks acknowledged worries about the threat from neighboring Belarus, which is a Russian ally. He said he doesn\u2019t consider Belarus an independent nation and is instead just part of Russia. He said Latvia is routinely concerned about the threat along that border and watches it closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. has deployed an additional 20,000 U.S. troops to Europe — for a total of about 100,000 — in order to reassure NATO allies, beef up training and exercises and shift the focus of the forces to the alliance\u2019s eastern flank. Of those, the U.S. now has about 500 troops in Latvia, an increase over the 100 that were in the country as of last December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, shortly after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, NATO began to explore how best to shore up the defense of the eastern flank, from Estonia in the north through Latvia, Lithuania and Poland down to Bulgaria and Romania on the Black Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn land, our new posture should include substantially more forces in the eastern part of the Alliance, at higher readiness, with more prepositioned equipment and supplies,\u201d said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at the time. \u201cIn the air, more allied air power, and strengthened integrated air and missile defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Austin first stopped first at Lielvarde Air Base where he and Pabriks met with U.S. and Latvian troops. Standing in a hanger, with a Black Hawk helicopter in the background, Pabriks flatly told Austin and the service members that \u201cif something happens on the border \u2013 we are ready to die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Austin assured Pabriks and the troops that \u201cif something happens, and … the sovereign territory of Latvia is questioned or challenged, we\u2019re gonna be here to work with our partners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n NATO only began stationing troops on its eastern flank after Russia annexed Ukraine\u2019s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Until late last year, only around 5,000 troops were deployed in the Baltic states and Poland on a rotational basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, NATO says, hundreds of thousands of troops are on heightened alert, with America\u2019s 100,000 troops in Europe, and 40,000 troops under direct NATO command, supported by around 150 ships and a similar number of aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Austin\u2019s visit also comes as Latvia moves to increase its own defenses, and the nation\u2019s president eyes a plan to reinstate national conscription for men, and for women on a voluntary basis. The draft could be reintroduced next year after a hiatus of over 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said the country was working closely with the U.S. and boosting its defense budget in response to the looming Russian threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow that Russia is waging a brutal war in Ukraine, the U.S. and we are united, working on strengthening NATO and providing support to Ukraine,\u201d Karins said, in comments published by the Baltic News Service, the region\u2019s main news agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associated Press reporter Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Austin is the first U.S. defense secretary to visit Latvia in nearly three decades, underscoring the increased importance of the Baltic nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":92408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,23,89,12,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1354],"class_list":["post-54035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BRZ2SJC4ZFGPBF2ZQYCESDE4UQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2022\/08\/10\/austin-pledges-military-training-support-for-baltics\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Apaches-Arrive-in-Latvia_US-Embassy-Riga.jpg.jpg\")