# Baiba Braže

# Baiba Braže

Baiba Braže (born 4 December 1966 in Riga) is a Latvian diplomat and politician who has served as minister of [foreign affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs) since 19 April 2024. The Saeima confirmed her that day by 66 votes to 11, with nine abstentions, after Krišjānis Kariņš resigned during an investigation into charter flights taken while he was prime minister. Latvian public media described her as the second woman to hold the office. She joined the [New Unity](/organizations/new-unity) party on 4 June 2024, after several weeks as that party’s non-partisan nominee.

She studied law at what was then the Latvian State University, later the University of Latvia, receiving a master’s degree in 1990, and a master’s degree in communication science there in 2002. She joined the [Ministry of Foreign Affairs](/organizations/ministry-of-foreign-affairs) in 1993 and over the following decade worked in international law and human rights, at Latvia’s mission to the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) in [New York](/organizations/new-york), as foreign-affairs adviser to the prime minister, and as director of the ministry’s Europe department. From 2003 to 2008 she was ambassador to the Netherlands and permanent representative to the [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons](/organizations/organisation-for-the-prohibition-of-chemical-weapons). From 2011 to 2016 she headed the ministry’s directorate for security policy and international organisations, and from 2016 to 2020 she was ambassador to the United Kingdom.

In January 2020 Foreign Minister [Edgars Rinkēvičs](/people/edgars-rinkevics) announced her appointment as NATO assistant secretary general for public diplomacy, a post she held from 2020 to 2023 under Secretary General [Jens Stoltenberg](/people/jens-stoltenberg). She then returned to Riga as an ambassador-at-large before Prime Minister Evika Siliņa nominated her as foreign minister. She remained in the post when the Saeima approved a cabinet led by [Andris Kulbergs](/people/andris-kulbergs) on 28 May 2026. After parliamentary elections on 3 October 2026, President Rinkēvičs said on 6 October that he would entrust Kulbergs with forming the next government; the outgoing cabinet was to stay in office until the new Saeima convened on 3 November.

Her first bilateral visit as minister was to Kyiv on 26 April 2024, where she met Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and said Latvia would continue to press for European Union sanctions on Russia. On the eve of NATO’s Washington summit that July she told Voice of America that decisions on deterrence meant there was no direct military threat to the Baltic states, that the situation could change if Russia were not defeated in Ukraine, and that allies should lift restrictions so Ukraine could strike legitimate military targets on Russian territory.

## Early life and education

### Family and schooling

Baiba Braže was born on 4 December 1966 in Riga. An autobiography she signed on 8 August 1990, under the married name Baiba Laizāne after her 1988 marriage to the lawyer Andris Laizāns, names her mother as Ņina Braže, born in 1932 and then director of the Republican House of Knowledge (Republikāniskais Zinību nams), and her father as Ojārs Bražis, son of Fricis, who had died in 1980 and was buried in Riga's First Forest Cemetery. She has placed the family's roots on the Liepāja side of Courland and has called Bārta, where her grandparents lived, a place of particular importance. A Bārta folk costume she wore at formal receptions, including a Christmas reception in London, she has tied to childhood there with her grandmother and her father's family.

She finished Riga's 49th Secondary School in 1985. In 2024 she credited a strict English teacher at the school, Vija Āboltiņa, with the grammar behind her later professional English. The autobiography states that she joined the Komsomol in 1981, took part in sport, and had been on the athletics team of the Latvian SSR. She trained in the javelin under Valentīna Eiduka, who in 2021 called her an unusually stubborn pupil and said she had thrown 54 metres. Braže has said a trainer selected her at school when she was twelve and that she continued for about ten years, including winter preparation and trips to Georgia with the Latvian team, until an injury ended competition.

### University and the independence movement

In the autumn of 1985 she entered the Faculty of Law at Latvian State University, now the University of Latvia, and finished in 1990. She later said she had enrolled with a sense that change was coming, and that teachers included leaders of the [Popular Front of Latvia](/organizations/popular-front-of-latvia), among them Ilmārs Bišers and Valdis Birkavs. Conversations with them, she recalled, strengthened a conviction that Latvia already existed as a state, and international law, long restricted, became a subject she could study. In a 2019 essay she wrote that law students had formed a Popular Front cell and that professors were among the movement's most active leaders.

On 23 August 1989 she stood in the Baltic Way with family, friends and fellow students. The chain, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, ran from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius. She called the atmosphere electric and the participants fearless, and wrote that, with no [freedom of assembly](/drivers/freedom-of-assembly) in the Soviet Union, the demonstration had to be large enough that the authorities would not risk arrests. It was organised, she recalled, by word of mouth, Popular Front sheets and landline calls, including one from a friend named Dace.

The foreign ministry's biography records the law qualification as a master's degree; lists her as Popular Front coordinator at the faculty from 1988 to 1990 and as a trainee at the Latvian SSR customs authority in 1989–1990; and, for 1990–1993, lists her as a lawyer, consultant, international-cooperation coordinator and senior desk officer at the Latvian Youth Progress Union. The same biography records an incomplete political-science master's in 1992–1993 and a master's in communication science, taken at the university's Faculty of Social Sciences in 2000–2002. Archive files reported by Jauns.lv date a sector-head post in the union's central apparatus from 13 August 1990 and an international-cooperation post from 8 November 1991. She has said that she began the political-science course in 1992 in the Faculty of History and Philosophy, and that a semester in 1993 at the University of Groningen, covering international public law, the United Nations and European integration, convinced her to seek work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which she joined that year.

## Early diplomatic service, 1993–2003

### International law, human rights and the United Nations

Braže joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1993, the year she also studied international public law at the University of Groningen. The ministry lists her as a senior desk officer in the International Law Department in 1993–1994 and in the International Political Organisations Division in 1994–1995. The law-department years coincided with the end of the Russian forces still in Latvia after independence. On 30 April 1994 President [Guntis Ulmanis](/people/guntis-ulmanis) and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an agreement for those forces to leave by 31 August 1994, while the early-warning radar at Skrunda stayed on for a further limited period as a civilian facility. Published biographies do not put Braže on that negotiating team.

In 1995–1996 she headed the Human Rights Policy Division, and in 1995 took a course on the international protection of human rights at Åbo Akademi University in Turku. From 1996 to 1998 she was first secretary at Latvia’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York, her first posting abroad. She was not head of mission: Jānis Priedkalns presented credentials as permanent representative to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 3 November 1997. The Russian presence that remained during the posting was Skrunda. Under the 1994 agreement the station was to be switched off by 31 August 1998. The [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe](/organizations/organization-for-security-and-co-operation-in-europe), which both states had asked in June 1994 to help implement the agreement, confirmed the shutdown on 3 September 1998.

In a 2024 interview she tied the New York years to the withdrawal and to a contest in the General Assembly. She said the United Nations had found no human-rights violations in Latvia, but that Russia still meant to allege mass violations in Estonia and Latvia; using the rules of procedure, she said, the Latvian side had its document taken first, after which the question was closed. She called that a diplomatic success and recalled that Russia’s permanent representative then was [Sergey Lavrov](/people/sergey-lavrov). The Assembly record is narrower. On 21 November 1996 Russia circulated Third Committee draft A/C.3/51/L.44, recalling the 1992 and 1993 resolutions on Estonia and Latvia and proposing further monitoring; no resolution on that draft was adopted. The 1994 troop withdrawal itself predates the posting.

### Adviser to the prime minister

Back in Riga in 1998 she was a counsellor on the ministry task force preparing accession talks with the European Union. She later described officials visiting ministries and Saeima committees to explain what membership would mean sector by sector, often to colleagues who still treated European integration as a distraction from ordinary work.

That year she also moved to the prime minister’s office. An order signed by Vilis Krištopans on 7 December 1998 appointed Baiba Laizāne—the name in the order—as an adviser from 3 December, by transfer under the civil-service and diplomatic-service laws, and told the director of the State Chancellery to sign her contract. The ministry describes the post as foreign-affairs adviser. The order lost force on 16 July 1999, when Krištopans left office; he had been prime minister since 26 November 1998. No published record sets out the advice she gave.

### Europe department and accession work

From 1999 to 2003 the ministry lists her as director of the First Political Department (Europe). Those years covered the decisions on Latvian membership of the Union and of NATO. Public sources give her the departmental title; they do not attribute particular negotiating chapters to her. At the Helsinki European Council in December 1999 Latvia was invited to open accession negotiations, and Latvia’s mission in Brussels later recorded that the accession treaty was signed on 16 April 2003, after less than three years of talks. On 21 November 2002 the NATO Prague summit invited Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to begin accession talks, with protocols envisaged by the end of March 2003. The directorship ended in 2003, as those instruments were being completed.

## The Hague posting and security policy in Riga

### Ambassador to the Netherlands and the OPCW

From 2003 to 2008 Baiba Braže was ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Latvia to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, resident in The Hague, and permanent representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). On 2 September 2003 President [Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga](/people/vaira-vike-freiberga) presented her letters of credence at Riga Castle; the chancellery recorded the ambassador as Baiba Laizāne. Vīķe-Freiberga called the relationship friendly and said the Netherlands had been among the first states to support Latvian membership of NATO. They also discussed European Union enlargement, and the president said 2004 would be demanding because the Netherlands would hold the [presidency of the Council of the European Union](/organizations/presidency-of-the-council-of-the-european-union) from mid-year. The ministry’s 2004 yearbook lists her, as Baiba Braže, at the embassy on Balistraat from 2 September 2003, with the OPCW representation attached to that post. At the OPCW Conference of the States Parties’ third special session on 7 April 2008, the participant list still named H.E. Mrs Baiba Braže as ambassador and permanent representative, with First Secretary Ineta Celmina as alternate.

### Thailand and return to the ministry

In 2008 the ministry listed her as ambassador-at-large in the Third Political Directorate, and from 2008 to 2010 she studied Southeast Asian studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. The period overlapped the posting of her husband, Dutch diplomat Tjaco van den Hout, who has written that he took up duties in September 2008 as Netherlands ambassador to Thailand, resident in Bangkok and also accredited to Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Dutch news in December 2010 still identified him as the ambassador in Bangkok. Latvian public media later reported that she had gone with him and studied Southeast Asia, Thai Buddhism, the language and the region, and that she afterwards said the interval confirmed she wanted to return to the service.

### Security policy directorate and Indonesia

From 2011 to 2016 she was ambassador and head of the Directorate of Security Policy and International Organisations, and from 2015 to 2016 non-resident ambassador to Indonesia, based in Riga.

A Cabinet order of 15 January 2014 named her, as head of that directorate, to the coordination committee of the NATO centre of excellence for strategic communications in Riga. In a January 2015 discussion of a new State Defence Concept, she said factors shaping the international order had changed and that the shift was not short-term, and that Latvia’s interest was to preserve an order in which treaties could be relied on. She described asymmetric, or hybrid, threats as reaching beyond the military—to minds, including through television and cyberattacks—and called the siting of the strategic-communications centre in Latvia one of the country’s most significant achievements.

In 2014 she completed the Generals, Flag Officers and Ambassadors Course at the NATO Defense College in Rome and training by the School of Public Administration and the European Institute of Public Administration for Latvia’s Council presidency. On 26 June 2014 she visited OPCW headquarters as director-general for security policy and met Deputy Director-General Grace Asirwatham, who briefed her on the [Chemical Weapons Convention](/facts/chemical-weapons-convention), including destruction of Syria’s chemical-weapons programme. They also discussed cooperation during Latvia’s presidency in the first half of 2015 and priorities on the re-emergence of chemical weapons, national implementation and universality; Braže said Latvian support would continue.

On 11 February 2015 President Andris Bērziņš presented her letters of credence for Indonesia. On 3 February 2016 in Jakarta, President Joko Widodo received 13 ambassadors; Antara listed Baiba Braze of Latvia as residing in Riga. The ministry told LETA that she was Latvia’s first ambassador to the country, with residence in Riga. Widodo thanked Latvia for the appointment and pointed to economic potential; Braže cited political dialogue, growing economic relations and cooperation in international organisations, and Indonesia’s place as the largest economy and democracy in Southeast Asia. In 2016 the ministry also lists her as ambassador and head of the Communications Directorate.

## Ambassador to the United Kingdom

### Appointment after the Brexit referendum

Braže became ambassador of Latvia to the United Kingdom in 2016, shortly after the Brexit referendum. On 22 July President [Raimonds Vējonis](/people/raimonds-vejonis) presented her letters of credence. She succeeded Andris Teikmanis, ambassador in London since May 2013 and then posted to the United States, after heading the ministry's communications directorate and serving as non-resident ambassador to Indonesia, and took up the London post in August.

On 17 November 2016 the Court Circular recorded that [Queen Elizabeth II](/people/elizabeth-ii) received her at Buckingham Palace, where she presented her predecessor's letters of recall and her own letters of credence; her husband was also received. Latvian television reported that two carriages brought Braže, her husband and four diplomats from the embassy for an audience of 15 minutes, at which she handed over President Vējonis's letter. She said the queen remembered a visit to Latvia a decade earlier, sent greetings to former president Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, to Vējonis and to the Latvian people, and, asked again about the 2018 centenary, said a visit would depend on her health.

### Bilateral relations and the Latvian community

The embassy's work was shaped by Britain's exit from the European Union and by Latvians already in the country. In November 2016 she told *Diena* that the mission informally estimated about 100,000 Latvians in Britain, that the prime minister had said their status would not change at least until withdrawal talks ended, and that six complaints of hostile treatment—a refused postal service, a child told to leave a playground, stones thrown at a house—were being raised with the British authorities. She told *Embassy Magazine* that nothing prepared a diplomat for Brexit and that Latvia wanted the United Kingdom "as close as possible to the EU". Britain, she said, was Latvia's seventh-largest trading partner; the community was reporting a changed atmosphere; and the two states would remain close NATO allies.

About eight months in she visited Northern Ireland and told the Belfast *News Letter* that Brexit had been unexpected in Latvia, met with regret and with respect for the vote. With honorary consul Gerard O'Hare she discussed Latvians working across the Irish border, including through a consular office in Newry, and said, "Of course, we need our people home." In November 2016 her first trip to Scotland opened an honorary consulate in Glasgow, the first since 1958, with solicitor David Kaye as consul and external affairs secretary Fiona Hyslop present; Braže called it the reopening of a post dating from 1922.

By the end of September 2019, she said, 57,600 Latvian citizens had applied for settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme, more than 16,000 of them that month. She urged those who meant to stay to register, because that status would protect EU citizens' rights, and said people who did not were unlikely to be removed but would face uncertainty with British authorities. Goods exports to Britain had risen on pre-deadline stockpiling, she added, while services exports had fallen.

### Public diplomacy and departure

The 2018 centenary framed much of the embassy's public work, including a London programme she said would recall Britain's part in Latvia's war of independence. At Lancaster House she and Foreign Secretary [Jeremy Hunt](/people/jeremy-hunt) lit a spruce brought from Valka, with the London Latvian Choir singing; she said "the many ties between our countries will not change," and Hunt said trade and investment should continue without barriers. In October 2018 Hunt told the Conservative conference that the EU risked becoming a prison on the model of the Soviet Union. The BBC reported her reply that the Soviets "killed, deported, exiled and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Latvia's inhabitants after the illegal occupation in 1940, and ruined lives of three generations, while the EU has brought prosperity, equality, growth, respect." She later thanked him for memories of a visit to Latvia and for Britain's contribution to Latvian freedom, which *[The Guardian](/organizations/the-guardian)* read as heading off any impression of a rift.

On 29 January 2020 Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs announced that she would leave London to become NATO's assistant secretary general for public diplomacy. On 5 May 2020 the ministry said she was taking up that post the same day and ending the ambassadorship, with no successor yet named. On 7 July President [Egils Levits](/people/egils-levits) presented credentials to Ivita Burmistre as ambassador in succession to Braže.

## NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy

### Appointment and mandate

On 29 January 2020, Latvia’s foreign minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, announced that Baiba Braže, then ambassador to the United Kingdom, would become assistant secretary general of NATO for public diplomacy. He called her experience an asset for the Alliance; she told Latvian public media she looked forward to working “for the most successful defensive alliance, for the benefit of all allies.” She took up the post on 5 May 2020, ending that ambassadorship, and served under Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. When the Saeima later confirmed her as foreign minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the NATO job as the highest post in the Alliance’s structures entrusted to a Latvian representative up to that point.

The work was based at NATO headquarters in Brussels. A profile published by the [Aspen Institute](/organizations/aspen-institute) Romania while she held the office said she advised the secretary general on issues in her remit, coordinated strategic communications across NATO’s civilian and military bodies and commands, and directed public diplomacy except press and media, which the NATO spokesperson directed for the secretary general. Allied joint doctrine AJP-10.3, promulgated in September 2024, states the same split: the assistant secretary general coordinates strategic communications and directs public diplomacy other than press and media, while the spokesperson runs day-to-day headquarters media work and messaging. The Public Diplomacy Division was described as raising the Alliance’s profile, building support for its policies and operations, and carrying political messages to opinion-formers and the public.

### Strategic communications

Her first months coincided with the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic). On 29 May 2020, at a webinar organised by the Aspen Institute Romania with the [German Marshall Fund](/organizations/german-marshall-fund), she said NATO had long tried to make allies more resistant to armed attack, hybrid threats and health crises, but that the pandemic showed more work was needed. She cited April 2020 decisions by defence ministers on civil preparedness and closer work with partners, including the European Union and the United Nations, and named countering disinformation and propaganda as one field for that cooperation. At Belgrade NATO Week that July, an event backed by the division, she argued for fact-based communication against disinformation in the Western Balkans and called Serbia an important partner.

In a May 2021 question-and-answer published by NATO, Braže said disinformation was old in kind but new in scale, and only one hostile information activity among propaganda and hostile narratives. The response she described was to analyse the information environment, engage audiences, communicate proactively and expose major cases, with partners and with citizens who, she said, should not pass on sensational claims.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, she spoke as a NATO official about the limits of the Alliance’s role. In March she told Latvian Radio that NATO was not a party to the war, that a no-fly zone over Ukraine would mean entering the conflict, and that no country’s security would rise if NATO fought Russia. Allies, she said, faced no direct military threat at that moment, though the Euro-Atlantic threat level had risen, and plans existed if threats appeared, including a nuclear scenario. In a November 2022 interview she said Russian anti-NATO propaganda had grown since 2014 and hostile information activity intensified after the invasion, and that the division coordinated communications across civilian and military bodies and answered disinformation with facts, proactive messaging and exposure of major cases.

### Return to Riga as ambassador-at-large

In July 2023, reporting a social-media post by Braže, Delfi said she had left the NATO post she had taken up in May 2020 and would return to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as ambassador for special assignments. The ministry’s curriculum vitae lists her as ambassador-at-large in Riga for 2023–2024. On 23 August 2023 she met John McKay, chair of the Canadian House of Commons standing committee on national defence, on Baltic and Euro-Atlantic security, Canada’s role as framework nation of the NATO battlegroup in Latvia, support for Ukraine, and accountability for Russia. On 13–14 November she represented Latvia at an OECD conference in Paris on disinformation, arguing for coordination among partners and inside government and for evidence-based public communication, and met the OECD’s director for public governance. The posting ended when the Saeima confirmed her as foreign minister on 19 April 2024.

## Appointment as foreign minister

### Kariņš resignation and parliamentary confirmation

On 28 March 2024 Krišjānis Kariņš, foreign minister of Latvia and prime minister until November 2023, said he would leave office on 10 April. Politico reported that, as prime minister, he had used about €600,000 in state funds on charter flights, with a further €557,000 from European Union funds, and that the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau had opened an investigation. The post was vacant by 15 April.

That day Prime Minister Evika Siliņa said New Unity (Jaunā Vienotība) had nominated Baiba Braže, then a non-partisan ambassador-at-large who already knew the ministry. Braže called the offer unexpected, said she planned to join New Unity, and named security, NATO, a competitive European Union and protection of citizens abroad as priorities.

The Saeima confirmed her on 19 April 2024, at an extraordinary sitting held only for the vote, by 66 in favour, 11 against and nine abstentions. Public media reported that she was only the second woman in the post; the ministry’s list records Sandra Kalniete, foreign minister from 7 November 2002 to 9 March 2004, as the first. Braže did not speak from the rostrum, but wrote that the vote backed a united, professional foreign policy.

### New Unity and later cabinets

On 4 June 2024 she said on TV3 that she had joined New Unity, which had nominated her, after serving without a party through more than 30 years as a diplomat.

Siliņa resigned on 14 May 2026. On 28 May the Saeima approved, 66 to 25, a four-party cabinet under Andris Kulbergs of the United List (Apvienotais saraksts), with New Unity, the Union of Greens and Farmers and the [National Alliance](/organizations/national-alliance). LSM reported that drone incidents had brought Siliņa’s cabinet down and that the new one was to serve until elections on 3 October. Braže stayed foreign minister. Of 15 portfolios, two were held by women: Braže, and Ilze Indriksone of the National Alliance at education and science.

The election fell on 3 October 2026, the constitution’s first Saturday in October. In results updated on 5 October, the Central Election Commission put turnout at 51.79 per cent (806,641 of 1,557,615 eligible voters). Six lists passed 5 per cent: the United List, 35.288 per cent and 41 seats; [Latvia First](/organizations/latvia-first), 13.076 per cent and 17; [Sovereign Power](/organizations/sovereign-power)/Alliance of Young Latvians, 11.710 per cent and 15; the National Alliance, 8.897 per cent and 10; [The Progressives](/organizations/the-progressives), 7.878 per cent and 10; and New Unity, 6.362 per cent and seven. The Union of Greens and Farmers, still in the outgoing coalition, took 4.401 per cent and no seats.

The new Saeima’s first sitting, when the previous parliament’s mandate ends, is the first Tuesday in November—3 November 2026. A cabinet is deemed resigned only then, and ministers continue until the Saeima expresses confidence in a new cabinet, unless it names temporary replacements. On 7 October 2026 that sitting had not occurred and no successor cabinet had been approved, so Braže remained foreign minister in the Kulbergs government.

### National Guard service and domestic politics

Her ministry curriculum vitae records Latvian National Guard (Zemessardze) service from 17 April 2024, basic training in 2024, and, from 21 March 2025, an operator’s post (OR-2; specialty 06GB) in the communications squad of the 13th Infantry Battalion headquarters and combat support company. Delfi reported that she took the oath on 16 May 2024 on joining the battalion, and that on 11 November 2024 she wrote of completing a 10-day field exercise after which her squad received black berets. [The Times](/organizations/the-times) reported that she trained with other guardsmen at weekends and on holidays.

In September 2025 a United List request, signed by ten deputies including Edvards Smiltēns and Kulbergs, asked her to explain her work before the restoration of independence, including at the Latvian Youth Progress Union (Latvijas Jaunatnes progresa savienība), and the start of her later career. Smiltēns said the faction had backed her appointment from opposition and now accused her of concealing her biography, calling the union the direct ideological and economic heir of the Latvian Leninist Communist Youth League. The ministry CV lists her for 1990–1993 as a lawyer, consultant, international-cooperation coordinator and senior desk officer there, and for 1989–1990 as a trainee at the Latvian SSR customs authority.

On 10 September 2025 the Requests Commission recommended rejection, four votes to eight. Its rapporteur said her written reply treated the claims as unfounded and as a politically motivated attempt to discredit her and to weaken Latvia’s line on sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine. Smiltēns said she had answered plain questions by alleging a conspiracy. On 18 September the Saeima rejected the request, 29 in favour, 46 against and one abstention. Kulbergs, a signatory, became prime minister the next May in a cabinet that retained her.

## Policy on Ukraine and Russia

### Support for Ukraine

Braže became foreign minister on 19 April 2024 and, on the ministry’s listing, still held the post on 7 October 2026, after President Edgars Rinkēvičs had asked Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs to form a government following the 3 October Saeima election. On 26 April 2024 she made her first bilateral visit abroad, to Kyiv, days after a trip to Luxembourg. With Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba she discussed security and economic ties and, the Latvian ministry said, pledged that Latvia would keep seeking European Union sanctions on Russia and other limits on the resources for the war. The two laid flowers at the Wall of Remembrance for soldiers killed fighting Russia.

She told Rada chairman [Ruslan Stefanchuk](/people/ruslan-stefanchuk) that reconstruction would focus on Chernihiv. She was thanked for work on deported children; she also met Prime Minister [Denys Shmyhal](/people/denys-shmyhal) and other senior officials and visited a restored thermal plant. A ministry draft of 3 April, before she took office, had already set military aid at 0.25 percent of GDP for 2024 and the next two years—about €112 million in 2024—with Chernihiv district among the civilian items, and Lithuania and Estonia were expected to sign similar agreements. [President Volodymyr Zelenskyy](/people/volodymyr-zelenskyy) said Rinkēvičs signed Latvia’s text on 11 April in Vilnius.

In an interview published on 10 July 2024, on the eve of the Washington NATO summit and after Russian strikes that hit Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, Braže said allied deterrence meant there was no direct military threat to the Baltic states, but that this could change if Russia were not defeated in Ukraine. She asked for more air defence and for restrictions to be lifted so Ukraine could hit what she called legitimate military targets in Russia with long-range weapons, and said [Vladimir Putin](/people/vladimir-putin) was counting on the West to tire. Braže said Ukraine would define victory and that the allies’ task was “victory for Ukraine in Ukraine.” On 26–27 November 2025 she met Zelenskyy, who gave her the Order of Merit, Second Class, and Foreign Minister [Andrii Sybiha](/people/andrii-sybiha). She handed over 21 Latvian-made Patria 6x6 carriers and opened rebuilt Chernihiv paediatric wards and an ombudsman office, a €612,075 Latvian outlay, and said a just peace needed more pressure on Russia and more help for Ukraine, including from Latvia’s coming United Nations Security Council seat.

### Sanctions, isolation and accountability

Her line from the April 2024 visit was that sanctions should shrink Russia’s ability to fight, not be eased while the war continued. In July 2024 she said those behind attacks on civilian sites, including the children’s hospital, would be held to account. On 25 February 2026 she told the UN Human Rights Council that strikes on energy infrastructure, which she said were meant to freeze civilians, were war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that more than 1.6 million Ukrainian children remained under occupation or had been deported. She demanded their return and accountability for Russia’s leadership, sanctions and action against the “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, isolation of Russia and Belarus in the UN system, and more help for Ukraine’s self-defence, speaking as minister of an elected Security Council member.

### The 2026 oligarch-listings dispute

In September 2026 that position met an EU renewal fight. The Council prolonged individual measures tied to Ukraine’s territorial integrity for 36 months, to 22 September 2029, covering on the order of 3,000 listings, but did not renew three people and one entity. Among those dropped were Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov, listed since the early phase of the full-scale war; both have disputed claims of closeness to the Kremlin. The Kyiv Independent reported that France and Slovakia pushed the removals and, citing the Financial Times and diplomats, that Paris sought Usmanov’s delisting because Azerbaijan had tied it to freeing two French prisoners; an Azerbaijani diplomat told Reuters that Baku wanted the delisting but denied trying to sway the vote. Latvia was the last to give way. Braže said dropping the two for political reasons, without legal grounds, sent “completely the wrong signal,” called it unprecedented, and said Latvia had blocked it “until the very end.”

Riga then abstained rather than vote down a package that would otherwise have lapsed at midnight. Kulbergs called it a choice “between a bad and a much worse one.” Estonia also abstained: Foreign Minister [Margus Tsahkna](/people/margus-tsahkna) said Tallinn opposed lifting the two names and would sanction them nationally, and diplomats told the Kyiv Independent that Belgium and Lithuania had likewise agreed to abstain. Latvia had that day asked for a two-week delay so the vote would follow the Saeima election. The prime minister’s office said Latvia would join France’s Forward Nuclear Deterrence Initiative; reporting on the government release also described a larger French military presence in Latvia, especially air defence. Ukraine’s Andrii Sybiha called the outcome a signal of impunity and urged national listings by other states.

On 22 September the cabinet ordered national entry bans and asset freezes on both men as persons linked to the aggression. The order, Latvian public media reported, treated them as businessmen close to Putin and noted a still-pending Latvian appeal against Court of Justice rulings that had lifted EU sanctions on Fridman and his former [Alfa Bank](/organizations/alfa-bank) partner Pyotr Aven, a Latvian citizen. The next morning on TV3, Kulbergs said the Foreign Ministry should have kept Latvia from being last, forced to choose between two people and about 2,600. Braže answered online that it was unpleasant news that he thought Latvia should have agreed sooner, as she said the other Baltic states had; she said coordination with the prime minister, the president and the ministry had been the closest, and that the criticism was not worthy of a prime minister.

## NATO, the European Union and regional security

### Defence spending and the eastern flank

As foreign minister, Baiba Braže treated higher allied spending and a heavier NATO posture on the eastern flank as [the centre](/organizations/the-centre) of Latvia’s security policy. At the 24–25 June 2025 summit in The Hague, which she attended with President Edgars Rinkēvičs, allies agreed to invest 5 percent of GDP a year by 2035: at least 3.5 percent on core defence and up to 1.5 percent on resilience, infrastructure, and industry, with a review in 2029. The figure was an alliance commitment, not a Latvian target alone. Braže called it “historic” and said Latvia was already near 4 percent of GDP in 2025 and would reach 5 percent in 2026. On 11 May 2026 she met Secretary General [Mark Rutte](/people/mark-rutte) at NATO headquarters.

The defence ministry recorded 3.3 percent of GDP in 2024 (€1.359 billion) and 3.80 percent in 2025 (€1.593 billion), including air defence, drones and counter-drone systems, and the Sēlija range. The 2026 budget was €2.158 billion. Public media first put that at 4.91 percent of GDP; after a 10 March 2026 GDP revision the ministry placed the same cash sum at 4.73 percent once items outside NATO’s definition were excluded. On 26 March 2026 the Saeima set a legal floor of 5 percent of forecast GDP from 2027. Reuters, using NATO’s July 2026 estimates of core spending, put Lithuania near 5.33 percent, Estonia near 5.1 percent, Latvia near 4.92 percent, and Poland near 4.68 percent.

Canada leads the NATO Multinational Brigade at Ādaži, enlarged from the enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup. A ceremony on 3 July 2024 marked the formation, planned at more than 3,500 troops, and the ministry said it reached full combat readiness in 2026. Germany leads the brigade in Lithuania, the United Kingdom the one in Estonia, and the United States the one in Poland. At Ankara on 7–8 July 2026, allies said European members and Canada had raised core investment by more than $139 billion in 2025, announced more than $50 billion in new procurements, including air and missile defence and uncrewed systems, and pledged €70 billion in equipment, assistance, and training for Ukraine in 2026. On 14 August 2026 Reuters reported that an Italian Eurofighter on Baltic Air Policing shot down a drone in Latvian airspace.

### European foreign policy coordination

In the European Union Foreign Affairs Council she argued that cutting Russian revenue was a common policy, not a Baltic exception. At the Gymnich meeting in Warsaw on 7–8 May 2025 she called full energy independence from Russia the priority. The Baltic grids had already left Russian frequency control: ENTSO-E confirmed on 9 February 2025 that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania synchronized with the Continental European system at 14:05 EET and permanently disconnected from Russia and Belarus. In November 2025 she told [France 24](/organizations/france-24) that French imports of Russian liquefied natural gas sent the wrong message, that Latvia had not resumed Russian oil or gas imports, and that crossings from Belarus were an organised hybrid operation. The EU had the month before agreed to phase out Russian gas by the end of 2027.

Estonia’s foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, told Politico that heavier European sanctions were more likely if Washington moved too. On 29–30 April 2026 she joined Nordic-Baltic Eight ministers in Kuressaare with High Representative [Kaja Kallas](/people/kaja-kallas) to discuss regional security, Europe’s contribution to NATO, Ukraine, and the Strait of Hormuz.

### Baltic, Nordic and transatlantic ties

In May 2024 Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg received her at NATO headquarters ahead of the Washington summit. Rinkēvičs led Latvia at the 9–11 July 2024 leaders’ meeting in Washington, D.C.; Braže afterwards met members of Congress in Riga on the summit and the U.S. military presence in the Baltics.

After [Donald Trump](/people/mig-donald-trump) returned to office she travelled on 4–7 February 2025 with her Estonian and Lithuanian counterparts, met envoy [Keith Kellogg](/people/keith-kellogg), and argued that the Baltic states and the United States both treated Russia as the main threat and that Europe had to spend more on defence. She told Politico the United States was “a strategic partner and ally of Latvia and the entire EU.” She remained foreign minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs, approved on 28 May 2026. On 15–16 July 2026 she attended a ministers’ conference in Washington hosted by Secretary of State [Marco Rubio](/people/marco-rubio) and spoke on sabotage, cyberattacks, and disinformation.

## Personal life, civil society and honours

### Family

Baiba Braže is married to Tjaco T. van den Hout, a Dutch career diplomat. She has said they met by chance at an early event during her ambassadorship to the Netherlands. He was secretary-general of the [Permanent Court of Arbitration](/organizations/permanent-court-of-arbitration) from 1999: its Administrative Council endorsed his appointment on 8 February 1999, and he took office on 26 May 1999.

Their daughter, Brigita, was born on 12 August 2005 in Riga, at the Riga Maternity Hospital. *Diena* reported that Braže had wanted the birth in Latvia, that she may have been the first Latvian woman ambassador to have a child while in post, and that she expected to return to the Netherlands with the baby in October 2005. Van den Hout later served as the Netherlands’ ambassador to Thailand, resident in Bangkok. He has written that he left the Dutch service in 2011 and moved to Riga, where she held a senior ministry post; the family then lived in London during her ambassadorship to the United Kingdom and in Brussels during her NATO appointment, returning to Riga in 2023. The foreign ministry lists her English and Russian as advanced, Dutch as upper-intermediate, and French and Thai as intermediate.

### Civic roles

On 31 May 2019 she was among the founders of the Dzemdību nama fonds (Maternity Hospital Foundation). The Riga Maternity Hospital said it would support families before, during and after childbirth, including in crisis, widen knowledge of family planning and newborn care, and support the hospital.

Her official biography also describes her as founder of Sievietes drošībai (Women for Security) and a board member until 20 April 2024, a senior member of the Spīdola women’s student corporation, a councillor of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Riga Stradiņš University from 2023 until 20 April 2024, and, from that date, a member and vice-president of the Latvian National Commission for UNESCO. The Ministry of Culture includes her among the commission’s vice-presidents. Statutes adopted in Riga on 8 June 2023 define Women for Security as a non-party association aimed at women’s full, high-level participation in foreign and security policy and at a network of women leaders, with particular attention to the agenda of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. The Register of Associations and Foundations entered it on 30 October 2023 and records that purpose.

### Decorations

On 15 March 2007 the Chapter of Orders, in a notice signed by President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, conferred the Second Class of the Cross of Recognition on Braže, then ambassador to the Netherlands, for services to the Latvian state. The decision was published in *Latvijas Vēstnesis* on 27 March 2007. The ministry biography, which dates that cross to 2008, also records the Officer grade of France’s Legion of Honour (2001), the Grand Officer grade of Portugal’s Order of Prince Henry (2003), the Grand Officer grade of the Order of Orange-Nassau (2006), the Grand Commander grade of Greece’s Order of Honour (2024), the Grand Cross of Denmark’s Order of the Dannebrog (2025), and, for 2026, the Commander, First Class, of Finland’s Order of the [White Rose](/organizations/white-rose) of Finland.

On 16 September 2025 the Orders of Finland recorded that decoration for Braže as foreign minister, together with awards to other Latvian officials. On 27 November 2025, in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented her with Ukraine’s Order of Merit, Second Class. A notice of 1 April 2026, published the next day, records that President Edgars Rinkēvičs authorised her to wear it in public.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/baiba-braze