Central command
post on the SSBN "Yury Dolgoruky" during a double-launch of
Bulava-missiles from the White Sea in September 2016. Photo: Russian Ministry
of Defense
Barents Sea has key role when Putin
plays nuke game on Saturday
Russia will exercise its triad of
nuclear forces with submarines, ballistic- and cruise missiles, the Defense
Ministry said.
Thomas Nilsen
It was in January Russia’s Defense Ministry announced it would arrange the
full-scale GORM [Thunder] 2022 exercise of the strategic nuclear forces
sometime in early 2022. Now, the ministry takes a rare move and specifies the
exact date of the drill, Saturday, February 19, RIA Novosti reports.
“On February 19, under the
leadership of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federations Armed
Forces, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a planned exercise of strategic
deterrence forces will be held, during which ballistic and cruise missiles will
be launched,” the announcement stated.
The nuclear weapons exercise
takes place amid tensions over Ukraine, but as such, drilling the triad of
nuclear forces has happened several times in recent years. Like at Grom-2019
when cruise missiles launched from the Barents Sea for the first time
played a key role in the exercise.
As reported by the Barents Observer earlier this week,
Russia has closed off a giant area in the Barents Sea, including large parts of
the Norwegian sector, for military activity. The danger alert for the area from
the Varanger fjord in the east to almost the Bear Island in the northwest is marked
with “Impact Area for Russian Missiles.”
Spokesperson Major Elisabeth
Eikeland with Norway’s Armed Forces said they are monitoring the current
activities.
The danger area activated for the period until February 22 goes from the eastern Kolguyev Island in the east to the Bear Island in the west. Map by Barents Watch
When exercising the nuclear
triad, SSBN submarines with both the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet use
to launch ballistic missiles. From the Pacific towards target areas near Kap
Kanin in the eastern Barents Sea, while one or two Northern Fleet SSBNs will
launch missiles in the other direction, from the Barents Sea to targets at the
Chukotka Peninsula.
Like the Northern Fleet has
closed off waters north of Norway and the Kola Peninsula, Russia’s Pacific
Fleet has altered danger areas in waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula.
In addition, a missile will
likely be launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Oblast
towards a target in the Far East.
The third leg of the nuclear
triad is cruise missiles launched from strategic bombers, like the Tu-95 and
Tu-160. When playing war games in northwest Russia, cruise missiles launched
from strategic bombers normally hit targets at a shooting range near Vorkuta in
the Komi Republic.
New cruise missiles
During Grom-2019, Kalibr
cruise missiles were launched from both the «Severodvinsk»
multi-purpose submarine and the new frigate «Admiral
Gorskhov» both sailing the Barents Sea at the time of exercise, the Barents Observer reported.
The naval version of the
Kalibr missile has a range of about 1,500 kilometers, and can with that hit
targets all over northern Scandinavia, including military airports like Bodø,
Luleå and Rovaniemi, or enemy naval groups in the northern part of the
Norwegian Sea.
Since 2019, Russia has also
tested the Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile from both surface warships
and the “Severodvinsk” submarine from the Barents- and White Seas.
Both the Kalibr and the Tsirkon
can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.
Air force
There are currently about 20
Northern Fleet warships and support vessels sailing the Barents Sea as part of
an ongoing exercise.
On Friday, the Defense
Ministry reported that three aviation
regiments of the Northern Fleet took part in the exercise to defend the Kola
Peninsula, home to the ballistic missile submarines. This exercise included
about 20 sorties from airports in the Murmansk region and was carried out in
cooperation with the naval forces operating in the Barents Sea.
Su-24 bombers, as well as
Su-33 and MiG-29 fighter jets trained on attacking enemy targets at sea in
cooperation with the nuclear-powered battle cruiser “Pyotr
Velikye” and the frigate “Admiral
Gorshkov”.
Onshore, units of the air
defense with S-300 and S-400 systems participated in the drill.
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