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As tensions between the West and Russia mounted, both sides set out to strengthen their forces in the Upper North. The region is believed to be rich in natural resources and climate change is also opening up new trade routes due to climate change.
On March 20, the Russian army carried out major maneuvers near Alexander Land, which belonged to the Pranas Joseph Land archipelago. More than 40 individual trainings are expected to be organized under this exercise program.
On Monday, the Defense Ministry announced that the Northern Fleet is launching a “multi-day” command exercise.
The maneuvers are expected to test Pancir S1 air defense systems, refuel MiG-31 fighters with air, as well as electronic lockdown exercises to simulate drones.
Last Friday, three submarine nuclear ships simultaneously crashed to the surface in the Arctic Ocean, breaking through the ice. An underwater ice drop from a submarine torpedo was also carried out.
President Vladimir Putin praised the exercise in the Arctic on Friday, saying the Russian military had proven capable of operating even in a “harsh northern environment.”
Mission Admiral Viktor Kravchenko told the Interfax news agency that the exercise was supposed to send a “signal to our foreign friends, the Americans.”
According to Kravchenko, last week’s exercise should remind the United States that it has a rival in the region, as well as show that Russia has been operating in the Arctic for “a long time.”
Russia is one of the five countries that claim the Arctic. Moscow increased its military activity there by reopening and modernizing several bases and airfields abandoned since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Moscow built a military base on a remote Caldera Island in the new Siberian archipelago off the eastern Arctic coast. Other facilities were also installed, including on the land of Pranas Joseph.
Russia has also deployed modern S-400 airspace systems there.
The United States sent strategic bombers to Norway in February, as well as to Western countries working to strengthen their military involvement in the region.
In 2018, the United States Navy sent one of its aircraft carriers to the Norwegian Sea for the first time since the 1990s, and the following year several other ships to Russia’s exclusive economic zone in the Barents Sea.
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