Mighty: The USS Gerald R. Ford heading into the Oslo Fjord.
Image: dpa
Arctic Challenge Air Force training near the Russian border is bigger than ever. At the same time, Norway always makes concessions to the Kremlin. But critics say restraint no longer makes sense.
The Arctic Challenge military exercise began in Finland, Sweden and Norway on Monday. Air Force training takes place every two years, but this time it’s bigger than ever. For around a week and a half, around 150 military aircraft from 14 nations are deployed in the sparsely populated area from the Russian border to the Norwegian Sea.
Julian Staib
Political correspondent for northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.
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In the middle of last week, the American aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest ship of its kind in the world, came into the Oslo fjord with a full load of fighter planes. In Norway, this was interpreted as a strong signal from the United States to stand closely by the northern NATO members. There was speculation about how far north the aircraft carrier would move during the course of the exercise. A trip further than Tromsø was considered unlikely, everything else would probably be seen by Russia as a provocation to which it would have to react, it said in Oslo.