War in the Arctic

How Ukraine manage to navigate drones far north to the Kola Peninsula is still not detailed. But despite very long distance, it comes as no surprise that Olenya airfield is a high-value target. Tu-95MS long-range bombers are frequently flying south into launch-positions for sending loads of deadly cruise missiles towards civilian targets all over Ukraine. The Kh-101 missile that hit the Okhmatdyt National Children’s Specialised Hospital in Kyiv on the morning of 8 July was likely launched from a plane from Olenya airfield.

Drones approached the vicinity of Olenya at least two times last week. Murmansk governor Andrei Chibis assured his fellow citizens that the drones were eliminated. It is important for the governor to keep calm. His job is to counteract panic. That is not always easy in densely populated areas. On September 11 the air alarm was activated in City of Murmansk. Pre-planned, authorities said simultaneously as social media was packed with information about two incoming UAVs and airspace was closed all over the Kola Peninsula..

People in Olenegorsk, a civilian mining town a stone’s throw from Olenya, could both hear anti-aircraft guns and explosions. A video from August of what seems like a modified microplane Aeroprakt A-22 exploding next to the airfield leaves no doubt. Russia’s most strategic airfield inside the Arctic Circle, some 1800 kilometers north of Ukraine, is now within reach.

The first drone came north in July. Ukrainian Intelligence was soon to proclaim that a Tu-22M3 parked at the airport was damaged. Sources with knowledge to the situation, however, says to the Barents Observer that no serious destruction was seen. 

In her weekly briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, spokesperson Maria Zakharova called Ukraine’s drone attack on Russia “terrorism”.

Let’s be clear. What we now see on the Kola Peninsula is not terrorism. This is part of the ongoing war ordered by Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s right to attack legitimate military targets inside Russia is clearly defined by international law. The war was started by Russia and consequently Ukraine has the right to self-defense. That includes striking military targets on the aggressor’s territory.

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This is the first time since Second World War we have acts of war inside the Arctic Circle.

The “High North, Low Tensions” era, naively proclaimed by Norway’s foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre in the late 2000s, is long gone. While Oslo and regional northern Norway in good faith tried to build multilateral trust and cooperation with Russia’s north, Vladimir Putin was already in full swing rearming the Kola Peninsula and especially the Northern Fleet.

Late October marks the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of Norway’s northeast corner from nazi-German occupation. Unlike the 70th and 75th anniversary there will be no joint celebrations this autumn. There are no common ground to lay wreaths. Putin’s conspiracy storytelling about fighting Nazism in Ukraine today, as a continuation of the war on Nazism from 1941-1945, has no root in reality.

What Putin has achieved is bringing war back to the Arctic 80 years on.

Last week’s strikes on the Kola Peninsula is highly embarrassing for the Armed Forces as it happened amid Russia’s largest strategic navy exercise since Soviet times.

The Ocean-2024 drills, that end on September 16, allegedly involve some 400 warships, submarines and support ships. 120 planes and helicopters are up in the air, they say. When Putin launched the active phase of the exercise, the ruler was speaking via video-link to Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, Navy Commander Aleksandr Moiseev and the five other fleet leaders. 

I wonder what they are thinking, watching their coward Commander-in-Cheif sitting safe in his bunker bragging about global military strength?

They know perfectly well that the Northern Fleet, the Pacific Fleet, the Caspian Flotilla and the Baltic Fleet are just a shadow of how it was in Soviet times. Not least to speak about the Black Sea Fleet that since 2022 has seen heavy losses and is not participating in Ocean-2024. 

As part of the exercise, long-range nuclear-capable bombers conducted flights over the Barents and Norwegian Seas. For the Tu-95MS and Tu-160 planes, Olenya airfield is of key strategic value. This is their forward deployment in the Arctic and a core part of Russia’s nuclear deterrence. In times of weakening conventional strength, as hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are killed and wounded on the battlefield in Ukraine, Moscow fuels its nuclear propaganda rhetorics. 

During the last Cold War, there was a saying that no conflict will start in the north.

No territorial disputes among the Arctic countries or disagreements about access to natural resources. Military planners, though, feared factors leading to Arctic spillover from conflicts in other regions. That is what we are witnessing now.

The drone strikes on Olenya brings an extra troublesome security dimension to the table. Not only for the ongoing war. It also worries those counting assets linked to global nuclear balance. Warheads are from time-to-time reloaded next the airfield. Further into the mountains, some 20 kilometers away, is Bolshoye Ramozero (nicknamed Tsar City), the most secret of all secret nuclear weapons storages on the Kola Peninsula. The town is under full supervison of the 12th Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. This directorate is responsible for all of Russia’s nuclear weapons, including storages, technical maintenance and transportation.  

Like with the surprise attack on Kursk region in August, Ukraine’s military strategists have again managed to outsmart Russia’s self-confidence and hit a weak point in defense. 

Unsurprisingly, Moscow’s first line of defense was to point the finger of blame towards the West. Propaganda-voice Maria Zakharova said “the US, Britain and NATO community are behind all terrorist attacks on Russian territory.” 

Up north, FSB-linked Telegram channels hinted one of the drones came in direction from Norway. Like the attack in August was blamed on Finland. This is fake and totally untrue. Both Norway and Finland have good surveillance of its near-border airspace. No drones have ever crossed the national borders into the Kola Peninsula.