I begrepet inngår 24 graders grensen som jeg har omtalt her adskillige ganger.. Det betyr at allierte fly som tar av fra baser i Norge, eksempelvis Andøya, ikke får lov til å fly øst for 24 grader øst, altså øst av Alta. Dette er en voldsom hemsko for våre allierte, og regelen må bort pronto. (Red.)
Norway has with
different degrees self-imposed restrictions on military activities in eastern
Finnmark. NATO allies and partners do not conduct signal intelligence flights
aimed at Russia over Norwegian air space east of the Porsanger fjord (red with
blue lines). East of the Tana Fjord (red), non-Norwegian fighter jets are not
allowed. On Tuesday, August 22, a Swedish Air Force plane collected info from
the Kola Peninsula by flying all north in Finland, while a US Air Force RC-135W
Rivet Joint collected data from north of the Kola Peninsula. Map: Barents
Observer / Google maps / FlightRadar24
"High time to scrap self-imposed
restrictions," says former Norwegian Commander. This week's flight map
shows why
Tuesday's signal intelligence flights
clearly demonstrate NATO's need to keep an eye on Russia’s military powerbank,
the Kola Peninsula, and why Norway’s self-imposed restrictions in eastern
Finnmark become a strange isolated spot on the map.
By
Thomas Nilsen
August 23, 2023
“We need a totally new Russia
strategy. My advice is for Norway to scrap both the base policy and
self-imposed restrictions,” former Chief of the Joint Headquarters, Lieutenant
General Rune Jakobsen said in a debate at Arendalsuka last week, as reported by VG.
“We need to send stronger
signals to Russia, to avoid being exposed to hybrid operations in an area where
we are very vulnerable,” he said.
Set during the Cold War, the
regulations were aimed at not provoking the Soviet Union, which based its fleet
of nuclear submarines on the coast of the Kola Peninsula from the early 1960s.
For Norway, in those days the only NATO member in Europe with a direct land
border with the USSR, the guiding policy was to balance between deterrence and
reassurance. NATO membership is the pillar of deterrence and limited military
and allied operations near the eastern border are the reassurance.
Winds of change
“Given the current state of
affairs, the most important issue is not to restrict allied military activity
near Russia, but to ensure that the Russian military stay on their side of the
border,” says Per Erik Solli, a Defense analyst with the Norwegian Institute
of International Affairs (NUPI).
He says the restrictions had a
secondary domestic agenda “to appease the left-wing political fraction in
Norway.”
Solli notes that
Moscow never reciprocated with a similar regime of restrictions.
“Instead they have
during the Cold War, and also recently, regularly arranged military exercises
outside Norway all the way down to UK, and even flown mock attacks against
targets in Norway.”
Per Erik Solli says Norway is
now in a totally new situation.
“The interventions into
Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 were wake-up calls, but the shakeup in
international relations occurred with the full-fledged brutal Russian war
against Ukraine from 2022.”
Kola - Russia’s military
powerbank
The Northern Fleet’s ballistic
missile submarines based on the coast of the
Barents Sea form a key leg in Russia’s nuclear deterrence.
Test launches of Bulava missiles, as well as non-functional nuclear-powered
weapons like the Burevestnik and Poseidon, are of interest for Western
military observers.
Land forces from the Pechenga
region next to the border with Norway and Finland have been active in Eastern Ukraine since Vladimir Putin
ordered the first militaryish operations in 2014.
The importance of the Kola
Peninsula in Russia’s war on Ukraine became even higher on Saturday as the
air force in a panic move relocated at least six Tu-22M3 bombers to Olenya air base south of Murmansk after
a drone attack on Soltsy-2 air base in Novgorod region took out one of the
planes. More than ten Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic bombers were last fall moved to Olenya. Also that
after Ukrainian drone attacks at southern air bases.
From here, inside the Arctic
Circle, the bombers regularly flies missions launching cruise missiles against
civilian targets in Ukraine.
No strange NATO has a renewed
interest in military movements on and near the Kola Peninsula.
Surveillance flights north and
south of Finnmark
On Tuesday, August 22, both
the US Air Force and NATO partner Sweden were in the skies to collect signal
intelligence from Russia’s Kola region.
Swedish Air Force dispatched
one of its Gulfstream S102B Korpen electronic intelligence (ELINT)
aircraft to a flight along Finland’s border with Russia all north to Lake
Inari.
Simultaneously as the
plane circled several rounds briefly west of the Russian border, a US Air Force
RC-135W Rivet Joint took off from the United Kingdom and headed north where it
in the late afternoon collected Russian signals from international air space
over the Barents Sea north of the Kola Peninsula and east towards Novaya
Zemlya.
None of the planes, however,
entered Norwegian air space over eastern Finnmark, the border region now in
question for lifting self-imposed restrictions.
Norway and Finland have
currently separate national systems for approving allied military aircraft in
their airspace and issuing diplomatic clearances to allies.
Per Erik Solli suggests the
two countries should discuss a common regime.
“Perhaps a cross border regime
should be in place instead to have a more holistic approach to allied military
aircraft operating in Finland and Finnmark plus those in transit to missions in
the Barents Sea,” Solli says to the Barents Observer.
Gradually lifting
Norway, though, has over the
years softened its self-imposed military restrictions, also in regards to
allied flights.
As a founding member of NATO
in 1949, Norway did not allow allied military aircraft at all to fly beyond 68
degrees North. That restriction was altered in a decade later when a non-fly
regime East of 24 degrees became the new norm. That is the air space east of
the Porsanger fjord.
Per Erik
Solli, himself an F-16 pilot in those days, recalls 1995 when a major
revision occurred and the so-called Finnmark restrictions for allied army,
naval, and air force were eased up.
“In the last decade several
alterations have been made for allied military aircraft flying over Finnmark,”
he adds.
“The restriction line is now
28 degrees East (the Tana fjord) and only a hard line for allied fighter
aircraft. Foreign military helicopters plus passenger- and transport aircraft
can fly over the entire Finnmark region as long as they follow the regime set
in place by the Norwegian Air Force.”
It was last fall Norway
allowed the US Rivet Joint electronic surveillance planes to fly in Norwegian
air space en route to Barents Sea missions, as reported by the Barents Observer.
Between 24 and 28 degrees
East
Such missions have to be
pre-approved by the Ministry of Defense in Oslo, and the planes follow a route
north to somewhere between 24 and 28 degrees East north of Finnmark before
entering international airspace. From there, the route goes straight
towards the area of interest between the Kola Peninsula, Cape Kanin, and Novaya
Zemlya.
The same US Rivet Joint planes
started to fly missions over Finnish air space a few weeks
before the country officially became a member of NATO on April 4th.
Swedish Air Force’s S102B
Korpen took to the skies on Wednesday as well, with a flight pattern more or
less similar to Tuesday’s flight to northern Finland. With Russia’s Kola
Peninsula in clear view out to the east.
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