AAN: Russian planes conducted a practice attack on a radar facility in Norway.

[W. Drake]

AAN: Russian planes conducted a practice attack on a radar facility in Norway.

 

 

 A flight of Russian ground attack in late 2023 flew a mock strike on a Norwegian radar installation, Vice Admiral. Nils Andreas Stensønes, the head of Norway's intelligence service, revealed today.
 

According to Stensønes, the Su-25 subsonic attack aircraft took off from the Kola Peninsula's Monchegorsk air base, crossed the Barents Sea, turned, and formed an attack formation before swooping down on the Norwegian town of Vardø.
 

A local news source said, "Vardø is a fishing town on a small island in the Barents Sea, but its proximity to Russia's heavily militarized Kola Peninsula makes it a perfect location for radar surveillance."
 

For many years, the Globus-II radar has caused friction in the relations between Moscow and Oslo. The news source went on, "Objects in space are officially observed by the radar." It is also thought to be quite competent in keeping track of and compiling a database of Russian ballistic missile signatures.
 

“The radars in Vardø are operated by the Norwegian Intelligence Service.”
 

Russia frequently conducts mock air and commando raids, both as practice for war-time operations and as a form of intimidation targeting rival states.
 

According to a Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (NDRE) expert, the simulated attack in 2023 was "a sophisticated and well-planned Russian signal."
 

Russian forces in July 2018 daringly simulated an assault on Gogland Island in the Finland Sea just south of Sweden. The island is Russian territory.
 

“The difficulty of landing on the coast of the island was the unpreparedness of the site and the choppy wind that is characteristic of all the islands of the Gulf of Finland,” the Kremlin stated.
 

“The special forces left the side of the Mi-8AMTSH helicopter at an altitude of 2,500 meters three kilometers from the island.”
 

The commandos used satellite navigation to steer themselves to the landing zone, the Russian statement continued. “After landing, the scouts disguised the parachutes and advanced into the interior of the island.”
 

Shortly before the island raid and around the same time as the mock attack on Vardø, 17 Russian warplanes buzzed the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duncan in the Black Sea.
 

A year earlier in early 2017, nine Russian warplanes conducted another raid targeting Vardø. Three months later in 2017, 12 Russian planes simulated attack runs on NATO vessels exercising in Norwegian waters off Tromsø.