Tag Archives: Baltic Sea

As the Swedes raise flag at NATO headquarters Swedish fighter pilots scramble to intercept Russian warplanes over Baltic

Swedish-Jets-for-NATO

Important Takeaways:

  • Tense moment Swedish fighter jets intercept Russian warplanes over the Baltic Sea – on the day Scandinavian nation’s flag was raised at NATO HQ
  • Swedish fighter jets intercepted Russian warplanes over the Baltic Sea, marking a significant moment in their integration with NATO.
  • The Swedish JAS-39 Gripen jets stormed the skies in their first real-world mission alongside German and Belgian aircraft on Monday morning after their flag was hoisted at NATO headquarters, in Brussels.
  • Following Sweden’s official accession to the alliance on March 7, its multirole jets participated in their first visual identification mission as part of the NATO Air Policing mission over the Baltic Sea.
  • In a show of operational readiness, the JAS-39 Gripens were scrambled twice on March 11 to identify and intercept Russian military aircraft.
  • NATO’s Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Uedem had spotted an unidentified track over the Baltic Sea stretching from Kaliningrad to mainland Russia – sparking controllers to launch the Swedish jets from Sweden.

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Putin testing West’s defense: NATO pilots intercept Russian jets over Baltic Sea

NATO-intercepts-Russian-war-plane

Important Takeaways:

  • Dramatic moment NATO Top Guns intercept Russian warplanes over Baltic Sea… then head off MORE Putin aircraft north of Poland as Vladimir tests the West’s defense’s
  • This is the dramatic moment NATO Top Guns intercept Russian warplanes over the Baltic Sea before heading off another Putin aircraft north of Poland.
  • It came as the Russian president made a direct threat to nuke the West as he accused NATO and the US of ‘preparing to strike’ Russia in his annual address to the nation.
  • NATO said that two French Mirage 2000-5s intercepted a Russian SU-30-M aircraft over the Baltic Sea yesterday.

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U.S. slaps sanctions on Nord Stream 2, project’s opponents say not enough

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration on Friday slapped sanctions on one Russian vessel and two Russian individuals involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but opponents of nearly-completed project said the move would do little to stop it.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the administration has now sanctioned a total of seven persons and identified 16 of their vessels as blocked property under sanctions law passed by Congress.

U.S. President Joe Biden separately issued an executive order on Friday allowing for sanctions to be imposed with respect to certain Russian energy export pipelines.

But opponents of the $11 billion project to bring Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea said the new sanctions were not strong enough.

“These sanctions do nothing to halt Nord Stream 2,” said Daniel Vajdich, president of Yorktown Solutions, which advises the Ukrainian energy industry on the matter.

Biden has opposed the pipeline, like the previous two U.S. presidents, because it bypasses Ukraine, likely depriving it of lucrative gas transit fees and potentially undermining its struggle against Russian aggression.

But in May the U.S. State Department waived two sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the company behind the project, and its chief executive, Matthias Warning, a Putin ally.

Biden has sought to repair U.S. relations with Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, as he needs the ally’s help on everything from the economy to relations with China and Iran.

“The only thing that can stop NS2 from becoming operational is lifting the waivers and sanctioning … Nord Stream AG, which they refuse to do,” Vajdich said.

Nord Stream 2, led by Russian state energy company Gazprom and its Western partners, is almost complete with only 9 miles (15 km) left to construct, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based nonpartisan research group, estimated it could be completed by September 3.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Susan Heavey and Tim Ahmann; editing by Chris Reese, Kirsten Donovan)

U.S., Germany deal on Nord Stream 2 pipeline draws ire of lawmakers in both countries

By Andrea Shalal and Andreas Rinke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and Germany will unveil a deal on Wednesday that maps out consequences for Russia if it uses the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to harm Ukraine or other Eastern European countries, but the deal faces opposition in both countries.

The agreement, hammered out by senior U.S. and German officials and first reported by Reuters on Monday, will resolve a long-standing dispute over the $11 billion pipeline, now 98% complete, being built under the Baltic Sea to carry gas from Russia’s Arctic region to Germany.

U.S. officials continue to oppose the pipeline, but say the accord would mitigate the possibility of Russia using energy as a weapon against Ukraine and other countries in the region.

Sources said Germany also agreed to take potential unspecified actions against Russia if it cut off energy supplies to Ukraine, in addition to seeking European Union sanctions, but details about those actions – or what specific behavior by Russia would trigger them – were not immediately available.

Germany would also contribute to a new $1 billion fund aimed at improving Ukraine’s energy independence, including through investments in green hydrogen, according to the sources.

Reports about the agreement drew immediate jeers from lawmakers in both Germany and the United States.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who has been holding up President Joe Biden’s ambassadorial nominations over his concerns about Nord Stream 2, said the reported agreement would be “a generational geopolitical win for Putin and a catastrophe for the United States and our allies.”

Cruz and other lawmakers are furious at Biden for waiving congressionally mandated sanctions against the pipeline.

The agreement will avert, for now, the resumption of sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive. Biden waived those sanctions in May to allow time for both sides to negotiate a way forward.

Some U.S. lawmakers have already introduced an amendment that would prevent the Biden administration from continuing to waive the sanctions, although the prospects for passage remain uncertain.

U.S. officials have sought to reassure lawmakers that the Biden administration will reserve the right to use sanctions on a case-by-case basis, in line with U.S. law.

In Germany, top members of the environmentalist Greens party, called the reported agreement “a bitter setback for climate protection” that would benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin and weaken Ukraine.

“At a time when Putin is putting massive rhetorical and military pressure on Ukraine and once again questioning the country’s sovereignty, Washington and Berlin are sending the wrong signals to Moscow,” said Oliver Krischer, vice-chairman of the party’s parliamentary group, and Manuel Sarrazin, spokesman for Eastern European policy.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Andreas Rinke and Simon Lewis; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

As winter comes, NATO kicks off largest maneuvers since Cold War

FILE PHOTO: U.S., German, Spanish and Polish troops of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence battle goups with their tanks get ready for the Iron Tomahawk exercise in Adazi, Latvia October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Terje Solsvik

OSLO (Reuters) – Military forces from 31 countries began NATO’s largest exercise in decades, stretching from the Baltic Sea to Iceland, on Thursday, practicing military maneuvers close to Russia, which itself held a huge military drill last month.

As temperatures fell below freezing across training grounds in central Norway, giving a taste of what it means to defend NATO’s vast northern flank, some 50,000 troops, 250 aircraft and 10,000 tanks, trucks and other land-based vehicles were ready.

“Forces are in position, they are integrating and starting combat enhancement training for major battlefield operations over the next two weeks,” Colonel Eystein Kvarving at Norway’s Joint Headquarters told Reuters.

Dubbed Trident Juncture, the exercise is by far the biggest in Norway since the early 1980s, a sign that the alliance wants to sharpen its defenses after years of cost cuts and far-flung combat missions.

Increasingly concerned about Russia since it annexed Crimea in 2014, Norway has sought to double the number of U.S. Marines receiving training on its soil every year, a move criticized by Moscow.

Russia last month held its biggest maneuvers since 1981, called Vostok-2018 (East-2018), mobilizing 300,000 troops in a show of force close to China’s border which included joint drills with the Chinese and Mongolian armies.

NATO’s war games were originally meant to involve 35,000 troops, but the number grew in recent months and included the late addition of an aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman with some 6,000 personnel.

NATO fears Russia’s military build-up in the region could ultimately restrict naval forces’ ability to navigate freely, and on Oct. 19 the Truman became the first American aircraft carrier to enter the Arctic Circle since before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Although a solid majority of Norwegians support membership of NATO, whose secretary general is former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, some parties on the left would prefer that the country quit the alliance and form some type of military cooperation arrangement with its Nordic neighbors.

“The effect of this activity will increase the tension between Norway and Russia,” Socialist member of parliament Torgeir Knag Fylkesnes said of the exercise, adding that the presence of an aircraft carrier caused particular concern.

“You have to be quite hawkish to view this as something that brings peace in any way,” he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Editing by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Russian fighter intercepts U.S. bomber over Baltic Sea

U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flies during the annual recurring multinational, maritime-focused NATO exercise BALTOPS 2017 near Ventspils, Latvia June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia scrambled a fighter jet on Tuesday to intercept a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 strategic bomber it said was flying over the Baltic Sea near its border, in an incident that had echoes of the Cold War.

The appearance of the B-52, a long-range bomber that first went into service in the 1950s, irked Moscow. A Russian Foreign Ministry official said the plane’s appearance in Europe would not help ease tensions between the West and Russia. A former Russian Air Force commander called the move “disrespectful.”

Russian air defense systems detected the U.S. bomber at around 1000 Moscow time as it was flying over neutral waters parallel to the Russian border and sent a Sukhoi Su-27 jet to intercept it, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.

“The Russian SU-27 crew, having approached at a safe distance, identified the aircraft as an American B-52 strategic bomber and escorted it” until such time as it changed course and flew away from the border area, the ministry said.

Russia said the SU-27 took off from its Baltic Fleet air defense unit, which is based in the European exclave of Kaliningrad.

The U.S. military said its aircraft was in international airspace and declined immediate comment on the Russian plane’s actions.

“We can confirm that the U.S. Air Force B-52 was operating in international airspace but we don’t have any information to provide at this time regarding the behavior of Russian aircraft,” Air Force spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said.

NATO members such as Britain regularly report scrambling jets to intercept Russian nuclear-capable bombers flying close to their air space. It is less common for Russia to report using its fighters for the same reason.

In a separate incident, Russia said an MiG-31 jet fighter had intercepted a Norwegian patrol plane over the Barents Sea. Russia’s Defence Ministry identified the plane as a P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft.

The Russian Defence Ministry complained that the Norwegian plane had flown close to Russia’s state border with its transponders switched off. The Norwegian military confirmed the encounter, but said it was “normal.”

Moscow was more put out by the B-52’s appearance.

The state-backed Sputnik news agency cited a Foreign Ministry official, Mikhail Ulyanov, as saying Moscow believed a number of U.S. B-52s had recently been transferred from their base in Louisiana to Britain to take part in military exercises.

“The fact that NATO forces are converging near Russia’s borders and carrying out military exercises supported by strategic bombers from the USA capable of carrying nuclear weapons hardly helps de-escalate tensions in Europe,” Sputnik quoted Ulyanov as saying.

U.S. forces are engaged in various exercises with Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and other partner nations as part of the Saber Strike war games. The United States is also taking part in the annual BALTOPS naval training exercise in the Baltic Sea which runs until June 16.

Pyotr Deinekin, a former Russian Air Force commander, was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying that he could not recall the last time a B-52 had flown over the Baltic Sea and that the incident raised troubling questions.

“Such behavior does not deserve respect,” said Deinekin, who said Russia needed to establish what weaponry the B-52 was carrying.

The B-52 was designed to attack Moscow’s most vital targets via the North Pole in the event of a nuclear war when the Soviet Union still existed, Deinekin said.

“Strategic bombers should not fly so close to our land borders,” he said.

(Addiotnal reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow, Camilla Knudsen in Oslo and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Larry King and Leslie Adler)