Most of the submarines in the Russian Northern Fleet have for the past week tried to sail from their bases on the Kola penninsula without being discovered , and into the Barents and Norwegian Sea.
The goal is to show that they are able to defend their bases and threaten the US East coast by getting so far out into the Atlantic that their strategic nuclear submarines can open fire at the United States, NRK was adviced by the Intelligence Service.
This is the largest Russian submarine operation since the early 1990s and the Cold War days.
The Intelligence service emphasises that this is not an exercise. It is an operation to demonstrate military force.
The operation started early last week. It was thus in progress when Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Norway’s Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide (H) met in Finnmark last week.
There are up to ten Russian submarines now participating in the operation. Eight of these are nuclear powered. The goal for some of the submarines is to get as far out into the Atlantic as possible without being discovered. The entire voyage out from the Northern Fleet bases in the Murmansk region has taken place under the surface.
The intelligence service says it still has a reasonably good control of where the submarines are right now.
This Russian operation is the reason why there is a lot of flying activity around the Air Force station at Andøya. Surveillance aircraft are on their wings to monitor the Russian operation.
As NRK understands, the operation is intended to last for at least 60 days. VG writes that it is compared to the large naval exercise Ocean Shield 2019 that Russia conducted this summer, with the difference that this time only submarines are participating.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
Leave a comment