Vel, dette skjedde den 8. fabruar, og det er muligens en tilfeldighet at antallet er likt med B-1B`ene som nylig landet på Ørland Flystasjon. Den annonserte russiske flåteøvelsen utenfor norskekysten starter nå. (Red.)
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By
Atle Staalesen
75
February 08, 2021
The supersonic fighter jets in early
January took over combat alert duties at the far northern base. This weekend,
the head commander of the Northern Fleet’s air force and air defense division
paid a visit.
General Lieutenant Aleksandr
Otroshchenko himself flew a MiG-31MB from the Kola Peninsula to Rogachevo, a
distance of more than 800 km.
The visit was made in connection with
the first shift of crews and aircraft, the Northern Fleet informs.
Arctic flights
In a comment to military news site
Zvezda, Otroshchenko underlines that the MiG-31BM operates without problems at
the extreme altitudes.
“The machine works excellently [and]
there is no difference from the altitudes where we normally fly around
Monchegorsk,” he said.
“A month has passed and we therefore
needed to shift the aircrafts and their personnel, and also have a closer look
at the conditions for the servicemen and their life conditions,” he explained.
Aircraft navigator Aleksandr Kharitonov
has spent a month at the remote base. He underlines that the Mig-31 is
well suited for the harsh conditions.
“They can fly in temperatures down to
minus 60 °C, which has been confirmed in experimental operations in the area of
the Northern Sea Route,” Kharitonov told Zvezda.
“The main nuance here is the weather,
which is very complicated,” he admits. “Now, for example, the wind has
for a week blown with a speed of about 100 km/h,” he said.
Arctic
infrastructure
It is the first time that supersonic
interceptor aircraft is deployed in Novaya Zemlya. The deployment is still conducted on test basis.
According to the Northern Fleet, there
were not detected any violations of Russian air space in the area in the course
of the month of duty.
The MiG-31M is a modernized version of
the MiG-31. The efficiency of the modernized MiG-31BM is believed to be 2,6
times greater than its original. The Russian Armed Forces is in the process of
modernizing a big number of its MiG-31 to the enhanced version.
The Northern Fleet’s 45th Air Defense
Division was formally established in December 2015. It includes a big number of
airfields and air defense bases across the Russian Arctic, from the airfield of
Temp in the New Siberian Islands in the east to the Nagurskoye base in Franz
Josef Land in the west.
General Lieutenant Aleksandr
Otroshchenko has been in charge of the division ever since its establishment.
“Defensive purposes”
The establishment of combat alert duties
for the MiG-31 at Novaya Zemlya comes as military tensions in North Atlantic
and Arctic waters are on the increase.
The U.S Air Force is reportedly planning a Bomber Task Force (BTF)
deployment, with four Rockwell B-1B Lancers, to the Norwegian base of Ørland in
February this year. The base is located 1,000 from Russian territory, but the
American aircraft have still triggered a harsh reaction from Russian
authorities.
In a comment posted on Facebook, the
Russian Embassy in Norway underlines that Norway is putting security in the
north of Europe and Arctic in jeopardy with the deployment.
Meanwhile, the Russian buildup in the
Arctic has “only defensive purposes”, the Embassy underlines.
According to the diplomats, the modernization
of military infrastructure in the Arctic is to help promote economic activities
in the region, and also improve Arctic monitoring, search and rescue, oil
preparedness and fishery management.
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