Arctic re-armament spawns international headlines and geopolitical concerns, but few give attention to the military-civilian cross-border cooperation in the sphere of search- and rescue (SAR) and pollution response training going on in the Barents Sea.
A well-coordinated alarm bell was triggered Wednesday morning and resources from both sides of the maritime border set course to the exercise area in the Varanger fjord.
With a clear view to the shores on both the east and west side of the wide fjord, both NATO’s huge military surveillance radars in Vardø, as well as the Russian radars on the Fishermen Peninsula, framed the exercise.
Further to the east in the Barents Sea is the Northern Fleet’s nuclear-powered battle cruiser “Pyotr Velikiy” and the missile cruiser “Marshal Ustinov” on combat training together with other warships of the Russian navy. Earlier…
