The British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, pictured here on an earlier voyage to Gibraltar, sailed with its Norwegian counterpart, Norwegian frigate Otto Sverdrup, in NATO exercises off northern Norway between late September and mid-October 2023. WIKIPEDIA
THE WATCH STAFF
A Russian warplane was escorted out of the airspace above northern Norwegian waters in early October 2023 after it flew close to a British aircraft carrier taking part in NATO exercises.
The Russian Ilyushin-38 Maritime Patrol Aircraft, based out of a nearby naval and airbase on the Kola peninsula, was met by two British F-35B fighters scrambled from the deck of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, The Barents Observer, a Norwegian newspaper, reported.
The 280-meter Queen Elizabeth can carry a fleet of about 40 F-35s and has a crew of 1,600 when fully embarked with aircraft. It is one of two Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers in the British fleet.
Two Norwegian F-35A fighters also escorted the Russian bomber during the same incident, according to an October 6 post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by the U.K. Carrier Strike Group. The Ilyushin-38, a four-engine turboprop anti-submarine patrol aircraft, normally carries sophisticated radar and information-gathering instrumentation along with weapons.
The Royal Air Force released a statement on X praising its pilots for handling the situation professionally and resolving it without military escalation.
The carrier was participating in a NATO training exercise with Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States that had begun about two weeks earlier off the coast of northern Norway.
In recent months, NATO and U.S. military activity has increased along Norway’s northern border with Russia, according to Norwegian news sites.
The closer military ties between Nordic nations improves the defense of the Arctic region, as does the ascension of Finland and soon, Sweden, to the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the Arctic Council in late October 2023.
The new Nordic alignment “strengthens our ability to defend the Nordic region; it strengthens our ability to be present in the northern regions; and it strengthens our ability to come to the aid of our Baltic neighbors,” Stoltenberg said.
The location of the October incident was not disclosed by the British or Norwegians for security reasons, but the carrier’s X account posted a picture on October 4, 2023, showing British Seamen being painted in the traditional “Blue Nose” ceremony given when Sailors cross Arctic waters for the first time.
The British carrier group also brought along other U.K. Navy vessels and a Navy ship from the Netherlands as part of NATO’s Joint Expeditionary Force.
Combat scenarios for the exercise weren’t announced, nor were locations for security reasons, a NATO statement read, but planes from Finland, Norway, Sweden and the U.S. took part.
The exercise was designed to build interoperability with partners and allies while operating in the austere north. Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), highlighted the importance of this posture in March 2023 congressional testimony.
“As the Department balances the demands of global mission requirements with difficult budgetary choices, USNORTHCOM and NORAD require access to trained and ready forces capable of operating throughout the commands’ areas of responsibility — to include the Arctic. The Joint Force must keep sight of the fact that special training and purpose-built equipment are necessary to operate in a region in which extreme climate, distance, and geography quickly overtake the unprepared,” VanHerck said.
The exercise marks the second time this year that a carrier group sailed north along the coast of Norway for allied training.
In June 2023, the USS Gerald Ford and its carrier group trained with the Norwegian Air Force off the coast of Lofoten islands inside the Arctic Circle, while the Nordic fighter jet exercise Arctic Challenge took place simultaneously in the skies above mid- and northern Norway, north Sweden and Finnish airspace.
Earlier in September, two American B-2 strategic bombers visited Orland air base in Norway, and the cruise missile-carrying submarine USS Florida made port call in early October to Tromso.
Farther north, into the Barents Sea, Russia issued a military warning over a large airspace along Norway’s maritime border from October 7-12, the Observer reported.
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