Latvia’s president Edgars Rinkevics is urging other European countries to follow his lead and bring back conscription in the face of Russian aggression.

Rinkevics said the Baltic state’s allies and neighbours should ‘absolutely’ look into the policy.

Latvia reinstituted its compulsory conscription policy in 2023, after having abolished it in 2007. It is mandatory for men between 18 and 27 and lasts 11 months.

The Mail Online reports: He is the latest European leader to call for nations to up their game militarily as the war in Ukraine continues.

On Friday, Poland‘s government backed giving military training to all adult males, plus female volunteers, as well as ramping up defence spending to 4 per cent of GDP.

However UK ministers today distanced Britain from  any plan to force citizens to take arms.

Pat McFadden, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pointed to the Government’s increase in defence spending in recent weeks but said Sir Keir Starmer was not examining bringing in mandatory recruitment into the armed forces. 

Conscription was last in place in the UK in 1960, as the last soldiers who served in the national service scheme introduced for the Second World War and Cold War were discharged.