Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina is dissatisfied that the message about today's drone attack on the oil product tank in Rezekne was sent out only after the drone exploded.
Silina stated this to reporters after a meeting of the Crisis Management Council.
Moreover, Silina noted that such situations strengthen society. In her opinion, local governments reacted quickly enough and made the right decisions. At the state level, additional recommendations are planned to be developed so that local governments have more freedom of action in such situations.
However, there is room for improvement. According to her, the alert system worked today, but she is not satisfied that it was activated only after the incident at the oil depot in Rezekne. The reasons for this will be requested from Defense Minister Andris Spruds.
Spruds admitted that the question of a possible delay in the alert is justified. Therefore, it is necessary to assess what worked and what did not.
At the same time, he noted that the alert system is activated after collecting "a certain amount of information." According to him, "a lot of information comes in every night," but it is unlikely that the alert should be activated "every minute." He reiterated that what happened will be assessed, and algorithms will be improved if necessary.
Economics Minister Viktors Valainis confirmed at the meeting of the Crisis Management Council that the incident will not affect the security of state oil reserves, the prime minister reported.
In turn, Silina also advised Latvians in such cases to follow official sources of information rather than messages on social media.
She reminded that recently false information circulated on social media claiming that Latvia had allegedly opened its airspace for Ukraine to strike Russia. "Russia will do everything to subject the residents of Latvia to the effects of information warfare," Silina added.
The head of the Crisis Management Center, Arvis Zile, acknowledged that each incident is a lesson, so after such cases, algorithms and procedures are reviewed.
"In this case, we identified possible shortcomings and areas that require improvement. This primarily concerns information exchange — to convey it more quickly to the public and responsible officials and make timely decisions," Zile emphasized.
As reported by the portal bb.lv, early on Thursday morning, several drones entered the airspace of Latvia, one of which crashed into an oil product storage facility in Rezekne.
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