Latvia moves to acquire long-range Barracuda cruise missiles from the United States

Latvia is in talks to buy long-range Barracuda cruise missiles developed by Anduril Industries, a move that would make it the first Baltic nation to operate this class of weapon. President Edgars Rinkēvičs announced the initiative while touring the U.S. company’s facilities and highlighted the signing of partnership memoranda with the Latvian Defence Ministry and Origin Robotics. The likely model is the Barracuda-500M, a jet-powered missile capable of striking targets beyond 500 nautical miles and launchable from air or ground platforms, with a ground-launch variant designated SLB-500M. The procurement follows Latvia’s earlier acquisition of the U.S. ATACMS missile system, which is deployed on M142 HIMARS launchers. Officials expect the new missiles to significantly boost Latvia’s precision-strike capability as NATO reinforces its eastern flank.