Andris Sprūds is minister of defense of the Republic of Latvia, a position he has held since September 2023. He was previously a member of the Saeima (parliament) and chairperson of the Saeima European Affairs Committee.
Sprūds is also a member of the advisory board and former director of the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, and concurrently holds the position of professor at Riga Stradins University.
Sprūds has been a visiting student and scholar at Oxford, Uppsala, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins universities, as well as at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Japan's Institute of Energy Economics. His research interests include energy security and policy in the Baltic Sea region, the domestic and foreign policy of post-Soviet countries, and transatlantic relations.
Sprūds holds a master's degree in Central European history from the Central European University in Budapest, a master's degree in international relations from the University of Latvia, and a PhD in political science from Jagiellonian University in Kraków.