Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters, has said he saw Russian border posts protected with sandbags and anti-drone nets last week, and that Russia’s navy is stressed, according to remarks made at the Atlantic Future Forum in Oslo.
Asked on board HMS Prince of Wales what had concretely changed in Russian behaviour in the north over the past year, Andersen said Russia’s threat perception has risen. He said: “Russia is a country at war.”
He said Russia is being attacked in depth and that this shows in its behaviour, adding: “I was at the border last week and I saw how they put sandbags around their border posts and nets to protect them” from drones. He said Russian forces are also overworked and that “their navy is stressed” as it escorts Russian merchant vessels and works to protect its bases.
Andersen said the region was developed as a Russian nuclear staging area from the 1950s and remains one, and that it is now also a staging area for conventional and asymmetric threats aimed at targets far away across the polar ice cap, the Atlantic, continental Europe and the United States. He said Russia has withdrawn to a defended bastion since the Cold War. Quoting General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the First Sea Lord, he said “our job is not to worry but to be ready”, and that the underwater domain is a Russian priority that allies must invest in continuously to track.
He said allies have “tripled Allied presence in the North Atlantic region, over the last three years” and brought carriers and strategic air power back to the region, but voiced one concern about the calibration of that deterrence and how Russia perceives it, “making sure that we are able to produce that strength without creating misunderstandings.”
Asked whether Norway’s part in the British carrier strike group for a second year shows Europe can hold the line if Washington steps back, Andersen said: “Whether that is replacing a U.S. commitment, I’m not sure. I think that is not a binary question.” He said Europeans need to do more of the daily work of producing security in the region while keeping the United States meaningfully engaged.
General Sir Gwyn Jenkins told the same forum that Britain has an open border with Russia to its north, and Britain has launched Atlantic Bastion to counter Russian activity at sea.
