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Latvia moves to buy Anduril’s Barracuda cruise missiles, president says

President Edgars Rinkēvičs said after visiting Anduril that he looks forward to completing the purchase. No variant, quantity, price or delivery date has been disclosed.

Motion Media News Staff

Sep 25, 2026

2 minutes

Two Latvian soldiers on an all-terrain vehicle in the foreground with a HIMARS rocket launcher truck and a transport plane behind them.

Photo: U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Lianne Hirano (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons (source)

Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs said he expects his country to complete a purchase of Anduril Industries' Barracuda long-range cruise missiles after touring the U.S. company, according to reports published Friday, Sept. 25.

"Looking forward to complete acquisition of Barracuda long-range missiles and [Latvian-U.S.] defense industry cooperation," Rinkēvičs wrote on X, as quoted by The War Zone. He said he met Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and saw the signing of cooperation memoranda that involved Latvia's defense ministry and Origin Robotics, a military drone company from Riga.

Neither Latvia nor Anduril has said which Barracuda version is involved, how many missiles Latvia wants, what they would cost or when they would be delivered, and the terms of the memoranda were not released, Defence Blog reported. If the purchase goes ahead, Latvia would be the first Baltic state with a long-range strike missile of this type, according to The War Zone.

The missile

The Barracuda line of jet-powered subsonic cruise missiles, introduced by Anduril in September 2024, comes in -100, -250 and -500 models. According to Defence Blog, the biggest can deliver a warhead heavier than 45 kilograms at distances up to 926 kilometers (575 miles). Anduril says the versions share more than 90% of their parts and that Barracuda is roughly 30% cheaper and twice as fast to produce as comparable cruise missiles.

The War Zone said the Barracuda-500M is a likely candidate, noting its published range exceeds 500 nautical miles. Because Latvia has no combat jets, it would likely buy the ground-launched version, the outlet said.

Under a framework deal the Pentagon signed in May, Anduril is to supply the U.S. Army with 1,000 or more ground-launched Barracuda-500Ms annually for three years beginning in 2027, and in July Poland's state-owned PGZ agreed to assemble and later produce the missile in Bydgoszcz, Defence Blog reported.

Latvia's current reach

Latvia, which borders Russia and Belarus, has ordered the Army Tactical Missile System, fired from HIMARS launchers, with a range of about 300 kilometers (186 miles). The War Zone said Latvia expects to field ATACMS in 2027. Defence Blog said a Barracuda-500 would triple that range.

Several European NATO members, among them the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden, are seeking ground- and sea-launched missiles able to reach 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers or farther, The War Zone reported.