The UK will deploy a Carrier Strike Group to the North Atlantic and High North in 2026 under Operation Firecrest, in what the Ministry of Defence describes as a major show of force aimed at deterring Russian aggression and protecting critical undersea infrastructure.
The deployment will be led by HMS Prince of Wales and will include warships, F-35 aircraft and helicopters, as part of a broader effort to strengthen NATO’s deterrence posture in the Euro-Atlantic and Arctic regions.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the move comes amid growing concern over increased Russian naval activity in the North Atlantic. The government claims there has been a “30% increase in Russian navy vessels threatening UK waters” over the past two years.
The strike group is expected to operate closely with the United States, including activity off the North American East Coast and a port visit in the US. The MOD said American aircraft are also expected to operate from the flight deck of HMS Prince of Wales during the deployment.
Operation Firecrest will also contribute to NATO’s new Arctic Sentry mission, launched this week, with the government citing the strategic impact of melting sea ice opening new routes and increasing the risk of hostile activity in the High North.
The MOD highlighted concerns around Russian operations in the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap, as well as the vulnerability of undersea cables and pipelines.
Defence Secretary John Healey said the deployment would reinforce British leadership in the region.
“I’m proud that we’re stepping up UK leadership on High North and Atlantic security,” Healey said.
“This deployment will help make Britain warfighting ready, boost our contribution to NATO, and strengthen our operations with key allies, keeping the UK secure at home and strong abroad.”
The operation will involve thousands of personnel across all three armed services. The MOD said the Carrier Strike Group will also exercise alongside NATO’s Standing Naval Maritime Group1, which will be led by the UK throughout 2026, with HMS Dragon acting as the command ship.
Parts of the deployment will fall under NATO command and will include cooperation with Joint Force Command Norfolk, which the government said is expected to be led by a British officer for the first time.
Operation Firecrest follows the UK’s 2025 carrier deployment to the Indo-Pacific, which the MOD said involved more than 1,000 F-35 sorties and engagement with over 30 nations, and resulted in the Carrier Strike Group being declared fully “mission ready” for NATO operations.
Good news, but not unexpected. She’s been up there before so it’s good for ongoing training. Let the media build it up how they like. Good PR.
British F 35s don’t have anti ship missiles
The Russian navy threat is submarines, not their surface fleet. More people should be asking questions about the availability of the Merlin fleet.
And aircraft.
And the few remaining T23s.
Pave-way IV is more than capable enough of taking out anything Russia can put in the surface.
I think Paveway requires laser target designation to hit ships. I’m sure the F-35Bs would have that, but would they want to hang around ships with SAM missiles or would they use a support aircraft/drone to target? I think we’ll all feel better when Spear becomes available. However, there should be at least one support ship with NSM for the larger ships, hopefully more. Sea Venom can be deployed on Wildcats for anything corvette sized. When you get down to fast attack craft there are Martlets and even CAMM.
Will Richmond deploy given it’s this year – make the most of the vessel whilst we can?
I doubt it has enough time left. It came out of LIFEX refit in March 2020 and it’s supposed to have a full inspection and hull fix within 6 years.
👍
Where is ‘Lizzie’? It seems that the Prince of Wales is taking all the ‘lift’ at the moment.
Under scheduled refit.
In planned refit. Finishing in the next few weeks.
I wonder why not send QE in that case, seeing as PoW has only just returned from such a big tour?!
The refit’s ~1 year long, and started about the same time as Highmast, so it’s not surprising it’s still going on. PoW will likely go into refit afterwards so it isn’t a huge problem and if we have both available at the same time that just frees QE up to do the hybrid air wing trials that I think are supposed to be late this year.
Since this deployment is closer to home I wonder if they might deploy so Apaches for training? I’d imagine in this age of boat drone swarms the Apache would prove useful with its main gun and missile pods. I know the RN has the wildcat but it is still not a dedicated attack helicopter like the Apache
Who’s support vessels will we borrow this time…
Presumably part of the intent is to demonstrate the ability to operate effectively in Arctic conditions.
Mixed feelings. It’s always nice to see a British carrier out doing its thing. Sad that we are rapidly losing / lost our ability to deploy an independent carrier group, due to a lack of escorts and capability.
We haven’t lost the ability to deploy a Carrier group. They are always multi national anyway, and should be. This one is no different. It’s been planned out long in advance anyway.
I disagree, we should have the ability to deploy a decent sovereign carrier group without any allied escorts. I can’t imagine any of our European allies risking their ships and sailors fighting a Falklands style war. But as things stand I dont think we could do it without abandoning other responsibilities.
Mixed feelings about visiting the US when we need to also be detering US aggresion towards Canada & Greenland.
Agree.
The US is going to invade Canada or Greenland, so give it a break…
Interesting comments from Rubio. Trump was right to poke Europe in the eye… we needed to step up.. but maybe, just maybe, the fact that they do know they need us to protect them, as well as vice versa, means there will be less upping the ante? It’s gone curiously quiet on Greenland. What interesting times. The Falklands issue is often brought up in these discussions… the only place I can think of where we would need a go-it-alone is operation is, well, the Falklands, and that’s a very different place to 1982. Where else would we need to act alone… answers on a post card?
Scotland.
I don’t understand. Why would Scotland invade someone? It’s as much of the UK as anywhere else. Being Welsh, I can tell you the Celts have often felt like pulling the plug on England but you wouldn’t last 5 minutes without us. So sleep tight, the Welsh, Scots and, yes Irish too, are making sure you’re safe! But then you could worry about Ynys Manaw (not to be confused with Ynys Môn on which all fast jet pilots train, by the way) and Portland Bill. And St Michael’s Mount, and Camber Sands. What happens when the Scillies invades the Lizard? It’s touch and go right now.
The serious point I’m making is that England does NOT own the armed forces. If Scotland leaves, it takes it’s share. I think it is less likely that they will go for independence now, geopolitics being what they are, but who knows!
That’s the prepare for war based on the last war approach. Conflict can arise in so many ways that were never anticipated and the point of having a decent military is to analyse the ‘known unknowns’, but have the cupboard prepared for the ‘unknown unknown’ (to quote Rumsfeld). No one could have predicted we would supply challenger tanks to fight a proxy war with Russia, who would have thought the yanks would threaten Greenland? We have to cover all bases which is why we have to have a carrier strike force that is not dependent on allies, which is not that hard, just a few extra escorts. The hard bit was getting the carriers and an airwing to begin with.
Diego Garcia.. would we fight the US for it? The history of these islands is murky, ( but we have a long history of displacing inconvenient people) to say the least and as no one is going to turf the US off it’s a non problem, which is why the Tories started it (Nov 22) and Labour finished it… despite Kemi’s rants. I think Mauritius gets a pig in a poke, but what do I know?!
I suppose I want to say Yes and No. I quite get your point… but increasingly we hang together with other nations, or we’ll all hang alone. Where I’m bothered is how we would really support OZ and NZ if China really expanded. Could we, would we? AUKUS is “just” subs, after all. But if we do rapidly develop hypersonic weapons, what does that mean strategically? Can they be air launched? I’d like to hear the team’s wisdom as it’s way out of my usual area of pontification.
Diego Garcia springs to mind, but it’s ok, we are in the process of giving it away….problem solved.