Eight of the Bucharest 9 (B9) Heads of State from Central and Eastern Europe and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met in Riga to discuss eastern flank defence and the situation in Ukraine ahead of the NATO summit in Washington in July. The Hungarian president did not attend the meeting.

The Bucharest Nine is a group of central and eastern European NATO members, namely Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It was established in 2015 in response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine in Crimea and Donbass.

Speaking ahead of the forum, President Rumen Radev stressed that Bulgaria was determined to develop its own defence capabilities and contribute to NATO's defence potential. However, he said that today's meeting would end without a joint statement due to a lack of consensus on the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

According to the Bulgarian president, "everyone wants Ukraine to restore its territorial integrity and Russia to stop its aggression, but the reality is that Kiev has neither the financial nor the human resources to achieve these goals".