RIGA, Latvia (AN) – When it came time to check his draft status, Einārs Saukāns sat in a locker room with his teammates before a basketball game.
The 18-year-old high school student from Rēzekne, a small industrial city about 60 kilometers west of Latvia’s border with Russia, was relieved to find out he had not been drafted. Then he decided to pull a prank.
Saukāns took a real draft notice from the internet, photoshopped his name onto it, and posted that on Snapchat. "A lot of people believed it because it had my name," he said. "People reached out to me and typed haha."
Despite the shadow of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, Latvia was the last of the Baltic and Nordic countries to restore compulsory service, which the country had abolished in 2007. Although the draft now looms over young Latvians, many, like Saukāns, have started to embrace it as just another part of being Latvian – so much so, they laugh about it.
As of the start of this year, Latvia had 830 young citizens preparing to join the military in July, about 40% more than in a previous round. Most of those recruits – 782 – signed up voluntarily, the defense ministry said.
Latvia became the first country to scale up its NATO forward presence in the eastern part of the transatlantic military alliance, along the border with Russia, forming a NATO multinational brigade for Latvia in July 2024. It now has about 4,000 NATO troops stationed at the Ādaži military base.
Even as Russia and the U.S. debate Ukraine’s future, Latvia and the other two Baltic countries, Estonia and Lithuania, ramped up preparations for a military conflict out of fear Russia is preparing to go to war with NATO.
"We are building a nation in arms which is ready to defend. And with this, every year by year, we are getting much more calm and confident," said Col. Māris Tūtins, a spokesperson for the National Armed Forces of Latvia.
Karlis Jansons, an 18-year-old living in Bauska, a city in southern Latvia about 20 kilometers north of the border with Lithuania, said he will volunteer for military duty once he finishes high school. His family had considered moving to Poland, fearing Latvia might be Russia's next target.
"I think it’s important for people to at least know basic military knowledge – what to do in basic scenarios if we get invaded," Jansons said.
Reversing the once-prevailing views of a military draft
As Latvia strengthens its military, it also strengthens NATO's front, since the tiny Baltic country and Russia share a border for 284 kilometers. In the past decade, Latvia has been fortifying it with fences and anti-tank ditches.
"Once considered an issue of the past, conscription has increasingly made its way back onto European, E.U. and global policy agendas in recent years, mainly since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022," according to a European Parliament briefing in March on conscription in the European Union.
"European armed forces were in significant decline in the decade preceding the onset of Russia's war on Ukraine," it said, noting that NATO is expected to establish troop number targets by the summer of 2025, "potentially reviving the debate surrounding conscription" amid some "skepticism about the level of training, professionalism and equipment of conscripts in some NATO circles and among army professionals."
Starting in July 2023, E.U. member Latvia brought back the draft as part of its efforts to shore up defenses against potential threats from its eastern neighbor, while also managing concerns over some internal protests.
"Conscription was not seen as particularly valuable after Latvia joined NATO because everyone thought we lived in a very nice place, and history had ended," Māris Andžāns, a political scientist at the Center for Geopolitical Studies Riga independent think tank, said in an interview.
Latvian politicians and the general public generally opposed compulsory service based on negative historical associations about it from the country's occupations by the Soviet Union, according to Andžāns.
During these occupations, Latvians were forcibly conscripted and often subjected to violence and harsh treatment, deeply tainting perceptions of mandatory military service. "It was considered political suicide if you would bring back conscription," Andžāns said.
Until Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Latvian leaders prioritized building a welfare state over the military, Tūtins said. That constituted "obvious arrogance" on the political and military side, he said, especially compared to Russia's strengthening of its ability to mobilize people for war.
As recently as three months after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine – the biggest attack on another European nation since World War II – a national poll found 42% of Latvians still opposed conscription.
Adding to the complexity of restarting the conscription, about a quarter of Latvia’s citizens are ethnically Russian and many of those are pro-Russia, according to the Latvian government.
The political leanings of Russians in Latvia were evident. In 2022, the Harmony Party, known for its representation of Russian-speaking Latvians, backed Ukraine in the war then lost its parliamentary seats. The pro-Kremlin Stability Party soon gained among Russian-speaking voters.
With a population of just 1.85 million and nearly 400,000 citizens living abroad, Latvia faced challenges with its conscription process. The threat of Russia, however, highlighted the need to build a well-prepared reserve force of a sufficient size, rather than depend on a small volunteer army.
Now in its second year, conscription is gaining public support, and the number of volunteers also is increasing, despite Russian misinformation.
“Nation in arms and comprehensive defense – that is what we are building up here,” said Tūtins. "We can clearly see that Russia is trying to amplify certain misleading narratives, suggesting that it is not needed. However, these efforts have not been as effective as they would expect."
Double the pay – and the chance to serve with friends
Life as a Latvian conscript can seem less rigorous than in some other countries. After completing eight weeks of basic training in boot camp, a conscript's daily routine matches that of a professional soldier, with time to rest after 5 p.m., either by going home or staying in the barracks.
"We want our soldiers to live in decent conditions, so we are both building the barracks massively and building up the instructor team who trained them," Tūtins said.
The defense ministry tried to prevent major protests from breaking out over conscription, but some grumblings still surfaced among 18- and 19-year-olds who would be prioritized by the drafting process.
"I don't have an opinion. I just don't want it to happen to me personally," said Saukāns, the high school student from Rēzekne.
Gustavs Timofejevs, another 18-year-old from Rēzekne, was not happy about the conscription. "I wouldn't like to volunteer, though I understand why it is necessary given what is happening near our country," he said.
In case his university studies are interrupted by the draft, Timofejevs has contingency plans, but he said he was not too worried about it. "The chance of being drafted is small," he said, particularly since volunteers already filled more than 90% of the nation's recruitment target.
Latvia reintroduced mandatory military service for young men like Timofejevs who are between the ages of 18 and 27, but it uses a lottery system to select conscripts. For those born after this group, mandatory military service will be required for all of them before turning 28.
Volunteer participation is encouraged through offers of substantial benefits. On top of the €600 monthly salary – double what conscripts get – volunteers can receive paid education after their 11-month army service.
Saukāns, who created the fake draft notice, said he likely will volunteer later because that offers more flexibile military service options. He prefers the five-year National Guard program, requiring at least 21 days of individual training and up to seven days of collective training per year.
"It's not that difficult. Most people just don't go because they lose a year," he said. "While their friends go to college, they get separated and take different paths. That was the main reason I didn’t want to be drafted."
The defense ministry takes that into account, even letting recruits list friends they want to serve with and arranging the groups if possible.
