Lielvārde was never meant to be Latvian. According to Wikipedia, the Soviet military built the airfield in 1969 for an attack aircraft regiment, one of several airfields that turned the Latvian SSR into a forward base facing NATO across the Baltic. In the spring of 1980 the 899th regiment moved in from Riga-Rumbula, and in July 1981 it was reorganised as a fighter-bomber regiment of the 39th Fighter-Bomber Aviation Division. The aircraft types it flew are not given in the sources checked for this page.

When Latvia restored its independence in 1991, the base was still Russian. The regiment left in June and July 1993 for Buturlinovka in Russia’s Voronezh region, and the base was handed to Latvia in 1994. The departing forces left no aircraft behind. What Latvia inherited was a long concrete runway, dispersal areas and buildings, and very little it could fly from them.

That inheritance explains the base’s shape today. A 2,500 m runway is far more than a squadron of helicopters and biplanes needs, but exactly what a NATO fighter detachment, a transport aircraft or an attack helicopter battalion needs. The Soviet planners who put a jet base here unwittingly built the airfield that would later receive the Alliance’s aircraft.

The restored air force had begun on 24 February 1992 at Spilve, Riga’s old airport, with six An-2 biplanes and four Mi-2 helicopters, according to the Aviation Squadron’s own history. In August 1994 the squadron moved to Lielvārde. Over the next decade it added L-410 transports donated by Germany, Wilga trainers, gliders and, in the 2000s, Mi-8MTV and Mi-17 helicopters for search and rescue, per Wikipedia.

The real investment came after Latvia joined NATO in 2004. The Airspace Surveillance Squadron was formed on 1 July 2004, building on the Baltic airspace initiative that the three prime ministers had signed on 6 February 1997. Its Air Operations Centre opened at Lielvārde in March 2009, housing the base headquarters, the Aviation Squadron, the surveillance squadron and the Air Defence Battalion under one roof. This is where radar data become the recognised air picture and where fighters are controlled.

Between 2007 and 2014 the runway, taxiways and administrative buildings were rebuilt, and all air force units were concentrated here. In 2017 the Aviation Base headquarters became the Air Force headquarters, and in March 2018 a Training Centre was added. The result is unusual: a national air force whose every unit, from radar to rescue helicopter, lives on a single airfield.

For most Latvians the air force they meet is a helicopter over the sea. The Aviation Squadron’s tasks, as mil.lv lists them, are search and rescue at sea, disaster relief, medical evacuation, firefighting, transport for the armed forces and parachute and cargo drops. For two decades that job fell to Soviet-designed Mi-8s and Mi-17s.

In September 2018 the cabinet approved four UH-60M Black Hawks under an intergovernmental agreement with the United States, worth EUR 175 million. Crews and technicians began training in 2020. The first two helicopters arrived on 11 December 2022 and were formally inducted at Lielvārde on 23 February 2023 in front of the defence minister, Ināra Mūrniece, the chief of defence, Lieutenant General Leonīds Kalniņš, the US ambassador and the air force commander, Colonel Viesturs Masulis.

The timing was not an accident. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Latvia gave its Mi-17s to Kyiv; the ministry confirms the transfer but not the number. The ministry said the other two Black Hawks would follow by the end of 2023. That delivery could not be confirmed on an official page for this dataset; Wikipedia counts three in service and one still to come.

NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission has guarded Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian airspace since 30 March 2004, flying from Šiauliai in Lithuania and, from 2014, from Ämari in Estonia. Latvia, without fighters, contributed radars and the control centre but never hosted the jets. In May 2023 the defence ministry announced that this would change while Ämari was rebuilt.

The move began gradually on 9 January 2024, and on 1 March 2024 a full rotation started at Lielvārde. Wikipedia records five German Air Force Eurofighters. The ministry warned residents to expect more frequent noise and more aircraft in the sky. When US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall visited on 22 August 2024, the base held rotational US Air Force personnel, a Spanish NASAMS air defence battery and the German air policing crews at the same time.

Kendall called the visit "a terrific experience", and the year proved that Lielvārde could host a fighter detachment for months. That matters for deterrence: an airfield that has already run a NATO fighter rotation can receive one again at short notice, as it did in September 2026.

Since 2024 the threat to Latvian airspace has come mostly from drones. A Russian Shahed-type drone crashed in Gaigalava parish on 7 September 2024. In September 2025 Latvia closed an airspace zone along its borders with Belarus and Russia, and NATO launched Eastern Sentry. On 7 May 2026 drones from Russia crashed in Latvia, one damaging oil storage tanks in Rēzekne, and allied fighters shot down drones over Latgale on 8 June and near Rugāji on 14 August; Latvia later said the August drone was Ukrainian, probably diverted by Russian electronic warfare.

Lielvārde is where Latvia answers with allies. French Rafales landed on 14 April 2026 with the prime minister and ministers watching; two Turkish F-16s came from Ämari on 21 August; and on 24 September four German Eurofighters arrived to protect the Saeima elections, at the request of defence minister Raivis Melnis, alongside Italian and Turkish air policing jets based in Lithuania and Estonia.

The base is also where Latvia’s own air defence is being built up. The Air Defence Battalion flies no aircraft but operates RBS-70 missiles; IRIS-T SLM systems, bought with Estonia for about EUR 600 million, are due from 2026. At a NATO media day on 1 October 2026 the base was to show a Spanish NASAMS and a Latvian drone interceptor called Blaze next to a German Eurofighter — a fair summary of how Latvia defends its sky: its own sensors and missiles, and allied jets.